Failure to Leave ... or, I'm Just Not That In to You

[Guest Starbuck]

He opened the door and--despite the pictures I had seen and the intriguing ad copy, despite positive reviews and favorable remarks about him on the Forum--I knew I'd made a bad choice. No attraction whatsoever. Zero. I wish I had found a way to politely say so (or made some other excuse) and offered to pay him at least a portion of his fee, but no. I stayed. It did not go well.

 

The escort was a low-energy lazybones throughout our session, but, still, I regard the whole disappointing experience as my fault. I didn't handle it well because I didn't handle it at all--didn't walk away when I should have. I felt a little better about it after a recently retired escort—a man who has both been hired and done some hiring—shared his own “failure to leave” story with me.

 

I have no doubt that plenty of you would have handled this better. Meanwhile, I’m wondering why I failed to leave this time. These are my best theories:

1. My mother raised a polite boy; I didn’t want to hurt the guy’s feelings.

2. It occurred to me that if he could fake being in to me, I ought to be able to fake being in to him.

3. I’d traveled far … I’d waited long … I still wanted the sex.

 

Any opinions? Insights? Similar experiences to share? I’ll be taking notes, because I am NOT making this mistake again.

[bostonman]

Something similar happened to me a while back - not that the guy wasn't attractive to me, just that I could tell there was zero chemistry between us (I also think he was high, despite the fact that HE had driven a long distance, willingly, to get to me). I went through with things because I hoped it would get better, and I was thinking with the wrong head, etc. It was a thoroughly disappointing experience. I just kind of filed it away in my head as "my bad" for not sending him away right away. Like you, I won't let that happen again.

 

I recently had a nice, promising email exchange with a guy on Rentmen. He has a nice profile, but no face pics. Faces are important to me, so i did ask him if he'd be willing to send a pic - but in the meantime, everything else about him and his manner seemed so right that I went ahead and scheduled an appointment for a few days later. Then I got the email with the face pic. As I wrote back to him, I could see where many guys might think he was handsome (and that's not a lie), but somehow it just wasn't working for me...and with a polite apology, I told him I'd need to cancel. He wrote back with a gracious thank you, and we left it at that. Now, the thought had occurred to me - because I liked everything else about him so much - that maybe I should go ahead and meet and maybe he'll look better to me in person, or maybe that just won't matter as much...but I talked myself out of that. There's always the chance I made a mistake, but I ultimately feel better that I followed my instinct and decided to call it off.

 

Learning how to say no comes hard to many of us. But I think if you have an inkling that "no" is the right answer, I think it's a valid instinct to follow.

[rvwnsd]

He opened the door and--despite the pictures I had seen and the intriguing ad copy, despite positive reviews and favorable remarks about him on the Forum--I knew I'd made a bad choice. No attraction whatsoever. Zero....

Any opinions? Insights? Similar experiences to share? I’ll be taking notes, because I am NOT making this mistake again.

 

I can't choose one of the theories you presented because I am not you. However, I'm wondering if something else happened. In your post, you mentioned his favorable reviews, pictures, Forum comments, and ad copy but I don't see anything about your pre-playdate communications with him. What kind of vibe did you get from the emails/texts/phone conversations you had with him?

 

I recently had a nice, promising email exchange with a guy on Rentmen. He has a nice profile, but no face pics. Faces are important to me, so i did ask him if he'd be willing to send a pic - but in the meantime, everything else about him and his manner seemed so right that I went ahead and scheduled an appointment for a few days later. Then I got the email with the face pic. As I wrote back to him, I could see where many guys might think he was handsome (and that's not a lie), but somehow it just wasn't working for me...and with a polite apology, I told him I'd need to cancel. He wrote back with a gracious thank you, and we left it at that. Now, the thought had occurred to me - because I liked everything else about him so much - that maybe I should go ahead and meet and maybe he'll look better to me in person, or maybe that just won't matter as much...but I talked myself out of that. There's always the chance I made a mistake, but I ultimately feel better that I followed my instinct and decided to call it off.

 

Learning how to say no comes hard to many of us. But I think if you have an inkling that "no" is the right answer, I think it's a valid instinct to follow.

 

I think you did the right thing by talking yourself out of changing your mind.

[+ Charlie]

It's hard to immediately terminate a situation which you have initiated and that you have looked forward to, based on a quick reaction which you may not completely trust. You question what you should do ("I wasn't prepared for this!"), and rationalize ("Maybe it will be okay."). Momentum keeps you going, and then it becomes even more awkward to act. Don't beat yourself up about being human.

 

Most of my hiring was done back in the days before the Internet, before reviews, even before print ads had photos. Many appointments turned out to be disappointing, and I took that for granted. But there were two incidents in which I knew the moment I saw the escort that I had made a big mistake. One guy was so self-deluded about his own attractiveness that I felt sorry for him, because he was obviously of very low intelligence, and had probably been rejected often--maybe brutally--because of it; I went through with the meeting as a charitable act. The other escort was of a different race from me, and I did not want him to feel that I was turned off by that, which I wasn't: he was very sweet, but much more effeminate than I had expected, and I had to fake a medical problem to end the scene gracefully.

[bigvalboy]

He opened the door and--despite the pictures I had seen and the intriguing ad copy, despite positive reviews and favorable remarks about him on the Forum--I knew I'd made a bad choice. No attraction whatsoever. Zero. I wish I had found a way to politely say so (or made some other excuse) and offered to pay him at least a portion of his fee, but no. I stayed. It did not go well.

I regard the whole disappointing experience as my fault. I didn't handle it well because I didn't handle it at all--have.

 

Always do a meet-n-greet...and let the escort know the purpose of it. Yes at 'Starbucks' or grab a quick bite at a sandwich shop. It saves a lot of problems down the line.

 

Interesting post Starbuck. Taking everything here at face value, it appears to me at least, that the problem initially at least was on your end. If you walked away because of not having an attraction to him, and the escort had been honest with you up until that exact moment, in terms of pics, age, physical type etc. then he, the escort, has done nothing wrong. I must tell you that I feel that the entire fee would be owed. Personally I think it would have been better to politely cancel the session. Chemistry is certainly a major factor in hiring, and at least part of the problem of the session not going well was most likely you not finding him attractive, and he might have sensed that.

 

We've all been in your position, and sometimes I've walked and sometimes I've gone through with it, and honestly I can't tell you specifically why I reacted the way I did in each case, only to say that if the problem is me not being attracted to him, then the fee is owed if I walk.

[RyanDean]

The phenomenon of "buyer's remorse" (a terrible term in this context, I know) can be really complicated here. Perhaps made even more complicated, at least in my limited experience, by the fact that the good parts of an encounter can more than counterbalance the middling parts.

 

Not long ago, I met up with a very well-reviewed guy. When considering the appointment, I nursed some very particular qualms that gave me pause and I hesitated in making first contact. We ultimately did meet though. And all of those initial doubts proved to be on point. BUT everything else was so excellent I didn't care. And I suspect we've all been in those situations where a bit of 'bad sex' seems more appealing than 'no sex' at least in the moment "before" (though usually not in the "during" or "after").

 

So I wonder if it's an especially tricky thing (pun?) to crave guarantees when moving in this territory.

It might be, as Charlie notes above, sometimes just part of the deal.

[whipped guy]

Many of us have had similar experiences and in addition to your three theories... of which number three... wanting to have sex... is always the prime reason for not walking out... As you imply I always feel that it might just be me... So even though there is no attraction and I'm experiencing at the very least some semblance of disappointment... I usually go through with it... and it turns out not being half bad... I look for something positive and focus on the fact that at the very least I will be having some sort of sex even if the hookup won't make the Guiness Book of Records.

 

However, in your case the experience seemed to be a disaster and especially since you mention that the guy was a "low-energy lazy bones". That implies that in spite of not being attracted to the guy he failed to satisfy in other ways... and in basic and important ways. I am going to hazard a guess that at best the escort in question is a half-baked youngin that has no clue how to act professionally with a client... and especially a client who is easy going and tolerant in nature. At worst I say that the guy could be a conniving hustler who has realized that he can get paid big bucks even when expending a minimal amount of energy... and is not concerned with fostering relationships and repeat business. If that is indeed the case I would definitely submit a review... but that is often a difficult thing to do and you might not feel comfortable doing so... Plus the aggravation from repercussions that could result might not be worth the effort.

 

Still with everything in life there is the always the thought and anticipation... Then there is the actual scenario as it played out... Then the "what ifs" and what "could have" been when things did not go as anticipated. So here is my philosophy regarding such situations:

 

"Would haves" and "should haves" are words we don't use.

They only make us feel bad and give us the blues

 

Plus as the saying goes... "You get experience when you do not get what you want." You got some experience and with any luck that experience will help prevent additional disappointments in the future!

[bostonman]

Most of my hiring was done back in the days before the Internet, before reviews, even before print ads had photos.

 

I'd relate that to hook-ups as well, which I had done with personal ads and then the phone hookup lines (which became so popular in the 80's and 90's - really the precursor of internet sites in a way). And how many times did I set up a hookup only to meet at the door and to realize that one of us didn't like the other's looks, or even mutually so. And so you'd make your excuses and leave it at that. And sometimes feathers were ruffled, of course.

 

Though I suppose the main difference between a regular hookup and an escort situation is the transaction. In a hookup, one can certainly be offended by the rejection, understood. In a paying situation, even though it can still be awkward, we can certainly agree that the client should have the right to decide not to buy.

 

That also played into the situation with the Rentmen guy I described above. Ultimately I realized that since I was going to be paying good money for this, it was my absolute right to decide against it, and save my money for someone I felt better about. I do think any professionally-minded escort would understand that decision.

[down_to_business]

Been there and done that. Was back when I used to fly escorts in (because no one locally appealed to me) for first meetings. In each case, I went through with the appointment, feigned as good of a time as I possibly could, and just simply never hired them again. Sometimes I would simply grant them as much "free time" as I possibly could or make excuses of why I couldn't have sex.

[Zapped]

I am not an escort. I do, though, work with people in one-on-one teaching settings. It's very challenging for me to be effective if there's no energy coming from the student, if there isn't a sense that the student is interested in what I have to share with him or her. If there is energy, if there is response, well, it can be as fantastic as good sex and I'll sometimes find myself sharing things I didn't know I knew.

 

I'm also a musician. When I play with other people, sometimes there is terrific chemistry and it's amazing. Sometimes we don't "click" and it's a lot of work.

 

I'm quite sure that for an escort one of the important things is to tune into the client's energy and work with it. Much of the time it is probably the client's attraction to the escort that fuels much of the sexual chemistry between the client and the escort. Since you found you were not attracted to him, he probably picked up on that and there wasn't much to do except for you each to go through the motions.

 

This doesn't make it your "fault." There just wasn't chemistry.

 

I haven't been in this situation myself with an escort. With students and other musicians where I don 't feel much chemistry I do my very best and then move on.

 

I've been on dates (as in meeting a potential hookup) where I said, "I'm just not feeling any chemistry here." There have also been times where I went through the motions and wished I had just been assertive and not moved ahead. Sometimes it's been because I didn't want to dissapoint the other guy. Sometimes I hoped I would get turned on. Sometimes I was lonely and I just wanted to be with someone for a while.

 

Once it was because I gave the guy my hotel room number instead of meeting him somehwere else and we were already in bed by the time I realized I wasn't that into him!

 

So the only suggestion I have to make is if you don't feel anything at the start of another appointment, and the escort is as he advertised, be honest with yourself and the escort and ask him what he thinks is fair. If it's the full price, well, you were paying for his time. Chat for an hour!

[Guest Starbuck]

Some answers to questions that were raised by my original post … and, also, questions about some of the answers ...

 

rvwnsd: My original communications with this escort were friendly, but unexceptional. I have had communications on par with this that resulted in great times with other guys.

 

BVB: I agree with almost all of what you said, including the point you emphasized that the entire fee may have been owed if I had opted to walk away before the session started (although I probably would have asked the fellow what he thought would be fair). The one thing I question is your advice to always do a meet-and-greet. It suggests that this is common practice—which I doubt—and, anyway, wouldn’t you still think that I owed him the full fee whether I cancelled in a coffee shop or at his front door? Or do you just mean that the coffee shop might be an easier place to do it?

 

Whipped Guy: I wouldn’t call the fellow “a half-baked young’in”—although he is younger than anyone else I have hired and I may have made a mistake in venturing outside of the (quite wide) demographic that I have usually enjoyed--nor do I think he is a “conniving hustler.” I feel less sure about whether he is a guy who--in your words--"has realized that he can get paid big bucks even when expending a minimal amount of energy." Reviewers and forum participants whose opinions I take seriously say otherwise, but the bucks are indeed big ($300/hr.) and the energy he expended was as minimal as I have ever experienced (take my word for it--or don't--but I was the one expending the energy to try to make something of our meeting). That said, whatever happened once we were underway is a secondary issue to knowing that I should have walked away--or, at least, changed the nature of the time we spent together.

 

So the only suggestion I have to make is if you don't feel anything at the start of another appointment, and the escort is as he advertised, be honest with yourself and the escort and ask him what he thinks is fair. If it's the full price, well, you were paying for his time. Chat for an hour!

 

Zapped: I had already decided, in advance of my original post, that I would never again "go along for the ride" in this circumstance. You gave me a good thought about how to handle it. I don't know that I'd ever say any version of "I'm just not that in to you," but I could certainly find a polite way to change the plan. The fee was never the issue, so paying it for time better spent is an excellent idea. It's possible that I might have had a better time just chatting with this young man; we might have found common ground that we never found in bed. Or--and this would have been ideal in this case--I could have asked him to show me around his very cool neighborhood (an area with which I am not familiar) and ended up feeling quite a bit better about how I spent my time.

[bigvalboy]

BVB: I agree with almost all of what you said, including the point you emphasized that the entire fee may have been owed if I had opted to walk away before the session started (although I probably would have asked the fellow what he thought would be fair). The one thing I question is your advice to always do a meet-and-greet. It suggests that this is common practice—which I doubt—and, anyway, wouldn’t you still think that I owed him the full fee whether I cancelled in a coffee shop or at his front door? Or do you just mean that the coffee shop might be an easier place to do it?

 

Hey Starbuck...Speaking for myself, the meet-n-greet is only done when I don't know the escort. I know other clients who use this method as well especially when hiring off of CL or BP, and it saves a lot of time and cuts down on unsatisfactory hires. Since I prefer multi hour hires, I want to make sure we will connect. First I let the escort know meeting for coffee is just that, to see if there is a connection, and ask if he would charge for that. If he agrees, he knows that there is the possibility that the hire may not take place, so if I opt to pass, then money is not owed, and he is aware of the conditions, and no hard feelings on either side.I pick up the check and we go our separate ways.

 

Every situation is different, and nothing is fool proof, but I just think that you have to be very upfront about how you are feeling and ask the hard questions. Communication is the key, and be prepared to walk away so as to avoid what you went through. No sex is better than bad sex. lol...

 

This is why I prefer to hire these dancers from the clubs, because often times I am able to spend several hours interacting with them, over the period of maybe several days, so when we do get together, I am fairly certain what will happen behind closed doors.

 

I think under the circumstances, at that moment, you did fine. Don't beat yourself up over this, it sounds like you learned a lot from this, and the next time, all of this experience will be whispering in your ear. I liked your post, good food for thought.

[Zapped]

Hey, Starbuck (and the rest of us), one more thought:

 

If you don't feel chemistry at first, but then go ahead and "just talk," some chemistry may develop, possibly including a sexual spark in an escort situation. As I think back to working with students, sometimes we can work on their playing right away. Sometimes we don't click at first but once we talk for a while and build some rapport and I get a good sense of their interests and needs, we can go from there much more successfully.