The reason I do this is medical rather than mystical

Two hours a week when my head is completely quiet. That is the reason, and it is not a romantic one. I have a job that follows me home and a brain that will not stop reviewing it at eleven at night, and this is the only reliable thing I have found that switches the noise off.

Thirty eight, the south of the city, seven years in. I know that answer disappoints people who want something about art or trust or the long history of it. Those things are real for other people and I do not doubt them for a moment. For me it is simpler and more practical: I need my attention entirely occupied by one thing, and there is exactly one thing that manages it.

The consequence is that I am a steady and unmystical partner. I turn up. I do not need any of it to mean something. There is not going to be a crisis about what any of it says about me. My last partnership ran five years and finished when her job took her south, and we are still in touch and still fond.

What I want is another long one. An evening a week, the same evening, with somebody who wants that regularity and does not need me to be more spiritual about it than I am.

If what you want is a person who will talk about the meaning of it for an hour afterwards, you would find me flat company. If you want somebody who never cancels and is entirely present for two hours, that is precisely the thing on offer.