Three men have offered me a monthly figure and all three were refused

Three times in the last two years a man has offered me a monthly allowance, unprompted, in an early message. Each of them was polite about it. Two of them explained that they preferred an arrangement with clear terms. All three were told no, and all three seemed to think the no was a negotiating position.

I want to explain the refusal properly, because it is not squeamishness about money and it is not a judgement about anybody who does things differently.

If somebody gives me a fixed sum every month, then what I have is an obligation. It does not matter how it is framed. On the Wednesday when I am tired and do not want to run anything, the sum is sitting there having been given, and the arrangement quietly becomes a thing I owe rather than a thing I chose. The whole value of this, for me, is that every single week both people are there because they want to be and for no other reason.

Forty seven, Brooklyn, sixteen years leading, three arrangements, none of them with a single dollar in them anywhere.

What I want is a long domestic arrangement with real duties and a man who is around for years. If the idea of that with nothing changing hands seems thin to you, we want different things, and there are places that do the other thing openly and honestly. This is not one and I am not one.