The Client Guide

Screening is a hassle. I don’t screen for fun, I do it because there are a lot of bad guys out there who wouldn’t mind ruining my health or my life. Allowing unverified, random men with potentially-dangerous motivations into my personal space isn’t smart. I like avoiding those on blacklists or with histories of violence against women. This is a reasonable concern for me to have, one that shouldn’t require an explanation but apparently does. If I keep myself safe, by extension, I keep you safe, too.

I do not accept social media accounts or review board handles as screening. I do not accept references. In other words, there are no alternatives to what I request (though I’ve now joined RS2K, and allow verification through them). What I request is basic and standard: real name, city/state of residence, real employment information, and the logistics of meeting. If you can’t find yourself online with the info you’ve given me, then I won’t be able to either, because I’m not psychic. Which means you won’t pass screening.

If you don’t pass screening, I usually don’t bother to respond as it’s a waste of my time.

If you pass screening, you’ll hear back from me with confirmation of the booking date/time/etc. you’ve requested and deposit information.

I need to be able to verify that you are who you say you are, and that you’re employed by who you say employees you. If you own your own business, I need to be able to verify that business as its own legitimate entity. In other words, it needs to be confirmed that you aren’t employed by agencies whose representatives I don’t wish to meet. That’s the entire point of employment verification.

If you’re retired, I expect to find evidence of your career online, and perhaps current evidence of the ways you now occupy your time.

Successful men leave an electronic trail these days, and that’s what I look for. The downside is that I can’t screen you with simply an email and your last name because I don’t have access to the private-investigator-level databases that would allow me to do that. Which is why I request the information that I do, because I need it.

I love it if you make online verification easy: whether with LinkedIn, interviews, articles, anything about you and your employment that exists online. The more it feels like pulling teeth, the less inclined I am to finish the process. Spending an hour Googling “John Smith” because Mr. Smith didn’t provide real screening information is not what I consider to be a meaningful way to spend the allotment of my life, or wasting my money to have a screener do the same thing. I’m a lazy background-checker and if you’re not easily found with basic Google searching, I move on.

Lying to avoid screening gets you blacklisted. So does wasting my time. I’m a professional and handling sensitive information is part of the package. Not being careless is also part of it. I no more want my neighbors to know my private matters than you do. We’re both very much in need of discretion and I do what I can to promote keeping our time to ourselves. Safety is part of discretion, however. Avoiding unsafe people is a high priority, as it should be.

Discreet and anonymous are two different things.

Understand that I assume you’re married as that’s the most common scenario I encounter. I also assume that I’ve easily screened others with much higher security clearances than you’ll ever have. Spies have good cover jobs that pass screening.

Passing screening sparks joy. Joy makes me eager to see you. Eager to see you allows all the other sparks to fly.

You want sparks, right?