I will not send a face before a conversation, and it costs me
- Looking for
- one ongoing arrangement, either direction, built slowly
- Experience
- Ten years, several arrangements, nothing longer than two.
- Around
- downtown, Toronto
I have a rule that I will not send a photograph of my face before a real conversation, and I have been called a catfish for it eleven times in two years. I started counting after the seventh, when it stopped feeling like bad luck and started looking like a policy other people were applying to me.
Thirty nine, downtown, ten years in. The rule is not shame and it is not about my face. It is that a photograph in a chat window becomes a screenshot in roughly four seconds and then lives somewhere I cannot see for as long as it likes. I watched that happen to a friend and I watched what it cost her.
What I will do is a live video call after a few days. You see me, I see you, and afterwards nobody is holding a file. Everybody who has agreed has told me it was fine and two people have since adopted it themselves.
What I want is one ongoing arrangement, either direction, with somebody who prefers a slow build. I lead with more confidence than I follow. When I follow I am quiet and slow to say what I need, and I would rather warn you than let you find out.
Small flat, thin walls, so quiet things only. Free most evenings. I do not travel out of the city.
The negotiation about the photograph is the tiring part, not the rule.