Two video calls before anybody gets in a car
Looking for a man who understands why the calls come first here
Two video calls before anybody gets in a car. Both of us on both calls. We are strict about it and the reason is entirely practical rather than moral: in this city a wasted first meeting costs four hours of somebody's life, and we have twice sat in a bar realising within ten minutes that the person opposite us was not who had been writing.
The calls do not have to be long. Twenty minutes is enough to know whether somebody talks to both of us, whether he asks anything, and whether the man on the screen is the man in the messages. About a third of the people we speak to stop replying when we suggest it, which we have decided is the process working rather than failing.
Forty four and forty seven, the Westside, six years open, two arrangements of a year or more.
She dates, monthly or so. He is not present. He does most of the talking on the calls, which surprises people, and it is deliberate.
Not looking for anyone who cannot be on camera, for any reason, including the reasons that are common in this city. We understand them and it still does not work for us. Not looking for anyone who agrees to the calls and then tries to convert the second one into a plan for that evening.
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
Two people wrote this together, and both of them have to say yes to you. These are the three written for the man on the other end of it.
- What makes a single man read as safe
- Vetting a couple: the screening men skip
- The first meeting: a drink, all three of you