Eleven proofs of life in four months, and none of them proved anything
- Looking for
- a partner who talks about the mechanics rather than the mystique
- Experience
- Eight years, mostly following, two arrangements over a year each.
- Around
- the east end, Toronto
In four months I have been asked to prove I am real eleven times, and I complied on every occasion, and somewhere around the ninth I began to resent it in a way that surprised me. The video call. The photograph holding a particular object. Once, a request that I write a stranger's chosen word on paper and photograph that.
Thirty five, east end, eight years in. I do not think any of the eleven were acting in bad faith. Each had a story about somebody who wasted their time and each was right to be careful. It is still true that by the eleventh I felt like I was renewing a licence.
The part that gets me is that none of it proves anything worth knowing. A photograph proves I own a camera. It does not prove I will be pleasant, or honest about my situation, or able to say no when I mean no. The things that actually matter cannot be verified with a phone and everybody involved knows it.
So I have flipped it. I now ask one question early: tell me about a time you got something wrong in a dynamic and what you did afterwards. The answers have been more informative than a year of photographs ever was.
Ongoing, either direction, though I follow more often. Weekly, with structure.
I share a flat with my sister, so hosting is limited rather than impossible.