I want to be depended on, which only works if nothing is owed

Twice in eighteen years somebody has tried to balance the books with me. Once with money, which I refused, and once with a standing arrangement of gifts that I also refused, and in both cases the person was genuinely trying to be decent and could not understand why I was making it difficult.

The reason is simple and it is the whole of my position. The moment anything comes back to me, I am in a trade, and a trade can be settled. I do not want a settled account. I want to be depended on, indefinitely, with nothing squaring it, because that is the only arrangement in which somebody actually needs me rather than employs me.

Forty eight, Brooklyn, eighteen years, two arrangements of seven and nine years, both ended for ordinary life reasons and both still on good terms. What I do is practical. Household running, admin, the shopping, the car, the calendar, and the enormous category of things that would otherwise sit undone for a year. I am consistent to the point of being boring and I have never once needed chasing.

What I ask for is a standard and somebody who cares whether it is met. That is it. Nothing sexual, nothing performed, nothing that requires me to be looked at.

If your instinct is that this cannot be fair, I understand. It has taken most people a year to stop feeling awkward about it, and every one of them eventually did.