she wants somebody we already know, I want a total stranger

We have agreed on everything else. Rules, health, pace, what happens if either of us wants to stop. Months of good conversations and no arguments to speak of.

The one thing we cannot get past is where the person comes from.

My wife wants somebody within reach of our life. Not a close friend, she is not mad, but somebody who came to us through a person we trust. Her argument is about safety and she makes it well. She says a man vouched for by somebody we know is a man with a reputation to lose, and that everything about meeting a total stranger from the internet requires trusting a series of things you cannot check.

I want somebody with no connection to anything. My argument is about the ending. However this goes, one day it stops, and I would like it to stop without any consequence for anybody. Somebody from our circle is somebody we will see again at a party in three years, and somebody who can tell one person, who tells two.

Neither of us thinks the other is being stupid, which is what makes it impossible. Both of these are good arguments and they point in opposite directions.

We have tried splitting the difference and found there is no middle. A person is either connected to our life or they are not.

We have also both noticed, and neither of us has said, that our positions line up suspiciously well with what we are each most afraid of. She is afraid of something happening in a hotel room. I am afraid of being talked about.

Has anybody actually resolved this rather than just picking one? And for those who went the known route, did it come back on you later?