I have done the verification pose three times and I am still asked
- Looking for
- somebody willing to be checked as thoroughly as they check me
- Experience
- Five years, three arrangements, one that ran two years.
- Around
- the eastern suburbs, Sydney
Three times now I have held my hand up at the angle the screen demands, in the light it demands, and waited a day for a badge that is already on my profile. Three times, because the app loses it whenever I change my photographs. And still, most weeks, somebody asks me to prove I am real in the first message.
Thirty eight, eastern suburbs, submissive, five years in. I want to be fair about this. There are accounts on here that are not people, and the ones who get hurt by that are overwhelmingly not men, and being asked is a small cost against that. I have never once refused.
What I have started refusing is the direction it runs. In five years I have been asked to prove myself perhaps thirty times and had proof offered to me unprompted twice. Both of those went somewhere. One of them lasted two years and ended kindly.
So my terms are symmetrical and boring. A short video call, both of us on camera, before anything else, and I will go first if that helps. After that a public coffee in daylight and as much dull small talk as you like.
What I want underneath all the admin is an ongoing dynamic with somebody attentive and consistent. Not looking for a person who treats my checks as an insult. Not looking to send photographs on demand. Not looking for anybody whose whole profile is proof and who cannot answer one question about their own week.