No photograph until week six, and here is what that costs us
Looking for a man who can be judged on how he writes for a month
Roughly half the men who write to us go quiet at the point where we explain there will be no photograph of either of us for about six weeks. We have kept a rough tally for two years now, and half is generous. It is nearer to two thirds in the summer.
The rule exists because of what this city is. It is big enough that there are plenty of people to meet and small enough that a face gets placed. Not a name. A name means nothing to anybody. A face gets placed by somebody who worked with your brother eleven years ago and remembers, and that happened to a couple we know, and it was not survivable in the way they had always assumed it would be.
Forty three and forty one, the Stockport side, six years of doing this. She sees one man at a time. He knows every part of it and is never present. That has not once been in dispute between us.
So here is the arithmetic, and we think it holds. We lose half the board. What we keep is the half who will spend six weeks talking to two people they cannot see, which turns out to be a fairly precise filter for the quality we actually want, which is patience. Both of our long arrangements came from men who never once asked.
We will do a call before we meet. Cameras on, both of us, after the six weeks, and we will go first.
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