I am not falling apart and I do not want to be handled

Something happens when a man in his forties writes about wanting structure. It gets read as a symptom. Three times in the past two years I have had a long, kind reply suggesting that what I am really looking for is help of a different sort, and each one was well meant and each one missed what I was asking.

Forty five, Queens, ten years in, two arrangements of four and five years, both ended for the dullest possible reasons, one of which was a job in another state and the other of which was two people running out of interest at roughly the same time.

I am employed, I sleep fine, I have friends who would say I am good company. I am not sad. I want a specific arrangement because I like it, in the way that other people like running long distances, and it is not compensation for anything.

What I want is standing duties in a household, a set of rules that operate whether or not anybody feels like it that week, and a woman who is genuinely particular. The particularity is the point. I have no interest in an arrangement that is mostly warmth.

What I do not want is to be somebody's project. And I would rather not have my motives interpreted for me in the first exchange, which is the single most common thing that happens and the fastest way to end a conversation I was enjoying.