No photograph in the first week, and I am not being difficult
Looking for a couple who can judge a person by what he writes
A photograph in the first week is the one thing I say no to, and it has ended more conversations than anything else about me.
My reason is dull rather than mysterious. I work in a field with a small number of employers and a long memory, and a photograph of me attached to this in the wrong place would follow me around. That is not a hypothetical worry. It happened to somebody I know slightly, in a different context, and it cost him a job.
What I will do is a video call, once we have talked properly, and I will meet you both in person before anything else. Neither of those is a lesser version of the thing. They are more information, not less.
Thirty six, the east, four years in this, two arrangements of a year or more. Both started with weeks of writing and both couples told me afterwards that the writing was why they chose me.
I can host, quietly, and I have a job that keeps me out of the country about one week in five. Not looking for anyone who agrees and then asks again the following week, which is the most common thing that happens. Not looking for a couple who need to see somebody before they will invest a paragraph. Not looking to explain this more than once.
Before the first drink Replying goes through the connected platform, so nothing about you is shared until you decide to share it. Take contact slowly and keep identifying details back until trust is earned. Meet somewhere public the first time, with your own way home from it, and if you are a couple then go together. Tell someone outside it where you are going. Never send money to someone you have not met. And if a post or a reply reads wrong, flag it rather than talking yourself out of the feeling.
Before you answer a post like this
Answering as a couple means screening him together rather than one of you doing it privately. Start here.
- Screening a third as a couple, not alone
- The six things to agree before you answer anyone
- Rules that survive contact with a real evening