Archangel

A close reading will see that said member poked the bears first!

That’s how I see it too. Hide someone’s comments doesn’t hide them if someone you didn’t hide quotes them.

Maybe there’s an evil child sex traffic ring operated out of midwestern pizzeria basements though?! *snark*

At some point, internet controversies inevitably descend to argumentum ad Hilterum.

Isn’t bigotedly maligning an entire swath of a country’s population totally off topic of this thread? I mean, I could be wrong, but I thought we were discussing market fluctuations and supply and demand expectations. Not engaging in malicious stereotyping 🤷🏼‍♂️

I’ve noticed everything has gone up. Everything. And the cynical side of me says it’s places (providers in a broad sense) taking advantage of the boogeyman “inflation” to simply raise rates. When you look at profits of companies, many are posting record profits. How is that possible during an inflationary period if things are so rough for such enterprises? I’m not talking mom-and-pop operations. I’m talking Amazon. Netflix. YouTube. Etc. Just by way of example. Jeff Bezos is worth in the neighborhood of $180 billion. I don’t think he’s hurting for inflation. I work in the non-profit sector and we rely on donations to keep us going. We provide services, but we don’t charge except for a few specific exceptions. Yet things have gotten more expensive for us as well. We need to pay higher rates to Comcast, for instance, along with all our donor base. We are seeing people cut their donations while our costs are going up. I’d love to charge for services from a strictly fiduciary standpoint, but we simply can’t. Yet the whole cost of operations issues is hitting us on both ends. We’re actually looking at rolling compensation back 14% next fiscal year simply to make budget with increased costs of operations with decreased donations. The difference here, in my line of work, I understand the dynamics of why that’s happening. I don’t like it, but I don’t complain or act like I don’t get why the situation is the way it is. People simply can’t give to things like they did before when the cost of everything else is going up. And we hear that. So I’m not surprised that clients would notice an escort putting rates up and not liking it. No one does. And people notice and say – “I’m now paying more for the same thing as before. The math has skewed against me.”

That was a non-fungible plan!

How many people still are bitching about how much gas costs today compared to when Reagan or HW was president? People don’t like price increases. Sure. It goes up. We adjust. We don’t have to like it. Likewise, as it goes up, some people won’t sign on to the new price as quickly as some others. Businesspeople shouldn’t wonder why people are unhappy to pay more. As a general rule, no one likes to part with their money no matter what for. I could see me making a remark about an increased rate. But it would be up to the provider. It would also be up to me to decline. Sometimes I’m hesitant to take a reduced rate if a provider says he’s willing to provide it. Not because I don’t think he’ll give worse service intentionally, but I don’t want to be resented.

So that’s how you discuss it. How do you identify guys who such talkarounds will register with?

@LookingAround

It’s the entitlement thing. There will always be guys who will provide the service for less than the market average. If a guy wants to charge above it, he most certainly can. But one provider raising his rates just sets himself apart as more expensive than if a not negligible number of providers do so. If you’re on the vanguard of raising prices, in a price increase period, you can likely expect a decline in number of clients until the demand side catches up with supply. Supply also will adjust down if demand refuses to meet supply price (cf. elasticity and stickiness)

If you have to ask, it more than likely is.

@NyGold– we hear ad nauseam about the shitty clients. Decency goes a long way to covering a multitude of sins…If you’re a genuine person, if you do something boneheadedly rude toward someone else, another genuine person will likely forgive you or overlook it. But if you’re a jerk or only looking out for yourself, then your comeuppance will happen at some point.

Big Brother (public or private) is always watching! Theres’s a guy I follow on IG whose profile I got from RM. His profile on IG is clearly a platform to drive business to his OF. But just because a guy has an OF doesn’t mean he’s open to meeting up. As has been discussed here ad nauseam a lot of guys prefer OF to escorting because of a host of reasons – mainly because they don’t have to deal with us!

The problem with the word “generous” in general is it means different things to different guys 😂 To some, it’s simply code for “do you escort?” and for others they think you’re lavish with escorts. I like to think I’m “generous” but my means aren’t limitless!

1. Reaching out to guys who have a linktree (etc) in DMs 2. Reaching out to guys who post clearly salacious material in DMs This what I said to the last guy I reached out to on IG: I really like your profile. I wonder if you provide paid services. Companionship and intimacy specifically? Of the guys who’ve responded, all have been polite. Never have I experienced rudeness. Just a lack of success. The response to the above was as follows: I stay pretty busy so don’t think I have time for that- I’m sorry

I’m not midwestern. I also asked for IG strategies. You simply said guys don’t arrange through there. You provided no strategy and so didn’t in fact answer. Did not answer the prompt but instead reframed the prompt. Which is off prompt, and frankly unhelpful. Since you have nothing more of substance on prompt or on your reframed prompt, you probably can just let it go and the conversation can go in a helpful direction.

Or put another way, entitled to a guy’s money simply because a guy reaches out. Or put more crudely, sees clients as nothing more than ATMs. I was going to say human ATMs, but such guys don’t really see us as human. Calling them providers is also laughable because they really only take. I’ve dealt with those types and if I sense it while attempting to book, it’s a pass. If it turns out I was duped, they generally offer a shitty experience and they’re definitely not a repeat.

Well, of course they’re not going to say they’re available for hire. Hence why I asked what the strategy is. In this hobby, we have been working with indirect discussion forever. “It’s against the rules” does not apply to any logical behavior in escorting because escorting is itself against the rules. There are clearly guys on IG who escort. And many a guy who does will direct you to his IG to see more pictures if you ask. So the question is…what strategies, if any, does someone use to approach a guy successfully on IG for a meetup? Clearly @arnemgreeves doesn’t do it nor does he have any advice on how to do so, but does anyone else?

👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻

I’m sorry. I don’t like paying more for anything. Everything has gotten more expensive and I bitch about it. The product/service is no better…and my paycheck hasn’t gone up. In fact, my employer has told me that my health benefit will be reduced this year. So excuse me for not being happy that the cost of anything, including escorting, has gone up. I wish I could set my pay rate and just expect people to accept it and happily so!

How about this added element… Texting with a client who’s paid a deposit? Or bought a plane/train ticket already? I will book in advance. And I have (very rarely, and not without some unease) paid deposits. I believe that signals intent. I also like to text periodically before the meetup. I like to be friendly. I struggle with understanding how texting is such a time sucker. In my job, I receive emails, texts, and calls (I’d guess in that order of frequency) from people I work for at any hour of the day and in the middle of anything I’m doing. I always respond. It’s not an isolated event either. I have it from the moment I wake up til I go to sleep, even out of the office. Even with people who aren’t likely to produce a “connection.” I don’t find engaging people in communication in a people-job as that unbearable. I sometimes wonder what escorts do with all the time saved when they choose not to engage in small talk texting. I don’t mean that judgmentally, but just as a curiosity. I don’t invest a lot of time in a text conversation with specific folks as a general rule, and it usually satisfies/placates folks. When I send a message to a booked escort to make small talk maybe once a week before we actually meet, I don’t understand why that’s so terrible. It’s also okay for him to respond when he has a chance. I don’t expect immediate responses. I don’t like when an escort will say he’ll text me back because he’s occupied in the moment. Not once has that ever happened. Whether I’m attempting to initiate booking or I’m booked and just checking in. Like an escort can tell the particular signs of behavior of clients, I can read the particular signs of behavior of escorts after having done this for a while. “I’m not able to text right now. I’ll text you back in a few hours/tomorrow/next week” never materializes. At least it hasn’t for me. Maybe someone else has had followup, but no moi.

Me too. And I’m someone who does book…

@MikeBiDude, I know some guys here have from time to time mentioned having made such arrangements. So I know it happens. I’d like to hear from those who have success stories, particularly on IG. Not other platforms.