For most of those two years, our time together looked like this: lunch somewhere she liked, a walk to an art gallery, her hand in mine. Conversation. Laughter. A man asking her questions and actually listening to the answers.

It was only recently that anything physical entered the picture, and only because she chose it, in her own time, on her own terms. That part of herself was not something she was willing to hand over quickly, and I had no interest in rushing her. Two years is not a long time to wait for something a person has waited a lifetime for.

Because here’s what she told me, in so many words. This was the first time in her life a man had paid attention to her. Not attention as a tactic. Attention as a gift. Being noticed, being heard, being held in someone’s full regard for a few hours at a time.

For her, that was worth paying for. And I understand why.

When people imagine what my clients want, they imagine it’s sex. Occasionally it is. But in my experience, sex sits far down the list. My minimum booking is two hours, and there’s a reason for that. The women who reach out to me are not looking for ten minutes of anything. They want connection. They want presence. They want to sit across from a man who finds them interesting, because somewhere along the way, the world stopped treating them that way.

Suzanne Noble, who hosts a podcast about sex in later life, asked me recently whether the film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande got it right. The woman in that film hires a companion and spends session after session not having sex, just talking, circling, building the courage to be seen. Suzanne wondered whether anyone really does that.

They do. Many of my clients are in their 60s and haven’t known intimacy for years, sometimes decades. They are not ready to undress in front of a man on day one, and they shouldn’t have to be. Confidence is built, not switched on. Safety comes first, then trust, then whatever she decides comes next.

What I’ve learned from this work is that intimacy takes more forms than we usually give it credit for. A hand held across a table. A question asked with genuine curiosity. The experience of being the most interesting person in the room to someone, even for an afternoon.

If any of this sounds familiar, if it’s been a long time since anyone paid you that kind of attention, I’d gently ask you the question I ask myself often: if not now, then when?

If you’d like more reflections like this one, you’re warmly invited to join The Inner Circle, my free newsletter, at georgegoulburn.com/the-inner-circle. It’s a privilege to have you here.

Not a request for sex. Not even companionship, exactly. It's quieter.

A woman who hasn't had someone hold her hand in years. Sometimes a decade. And at some point, she stopped expecting it. She isn't broken. She's been living a life where the ordinary tenderness of being touched, held, noticed, chosen quietly stopped showing up. And she adjusted.

We talk about the loneliness epidemic a lot, but mostly in the abstract. What we don't talk about is what it feels like in the body.

The specific ache of being in a room full of people and not being touched by any of them.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of meeting a woman in her mid-fifties.

She'd carried her upbringing as her persona. She’d been religious, careful, certain about what a woman's life was supposed to look like right up until the point where she decided she wasn't carrying it any further. It’s at that point that she reached out to me. We spoke at length before we met. We had coffee first. And then, with no particular urgency, we began an intimate session together.

What I witnessed in her over the months that followed wasn't some dramatic shift. She became more herself. Warmer. Quicker to laugh. She travelled overseas, something she once wouldn't have considered possible for her. She sought out other experiences. She found, at 55, that the life she'd been handed wasn't the only one available. She wrote that chapter. I was just fortunate to be in the room when she started.

This is what I mean when I say that what my clients are seeking is rarely what people assume. Sex is, honestly, well down the list.

What comes first is attention. Presence. The experience of sitting with someone who is entirely there, not half-elsewhere, not performing interest, not working toward something else.

We know what happens when a child isn't held. We know the research. We know it matters.

What we talk about less is what happens when an adult woman spends years without that kind of care, not through anyone's fault, not through any failure on her part. It leaves something.

A quiet mark. One that doesn't always have a name.

If that's familiar, the specific silence of a life that used to hold more warmth. I want to say plainly: that feeling isn't a verdict. It's just a signal worth listening to. If not now, then when?

Not the polished version. The real one.

I spent 25 years in government and corporate roles. I was good at the work, but I was less good at the relationships running alongside it. I was married for ten years, monogamously and genuinely. After that ended, I found myself in another long partnership, one where I wasn’t as honest as I should have been. That relationship ended when I was 40, and I spent a long time sitting with what I’d done and what kind of man I actually wanted to be.

What came out of that sitting was a decision. I was done pretending that one person could be everything, and I was done being dishonest about it. So for the past 14 years, I’ve dated openly, transparently, and with full conversation at every step. It’s been the most clarifying education of my life.

Somewhere in those years, a handful of women said some version of the same thing. You’re really good at this, you should be paid for it.

One of them paid me so she could separate affection from something else, and understand what she was actually feeling.

That was the beginning.

I started this work formally in September 2023 and what I’ve found in the time since is that the women who come to me are rarely looking for what people assume they’re looking for. They want to be seen, listened to and held. They want an afternoon, an evening, a night or even longer with someone who is entirely, unhurriedly present with them. For many of them, it’s been a long time since they had that.

That’s what this newsletter is about.

Not the sensational version of what I do. The honest one. I’ll write about intimacy, presence, and what it means to make a woman feel truly seen. About what I’ve learnt from 14 years of paying close attention. I’ll also share what men can and should do better, and what women deserve to ask for.

Nothing is off the table. You can write to me with any questions or topics you’d like to discuss.

I’m glad you’re here.

George