Devon Hunter

Two flakes here in Philly have reminded me of a class of time waster I’d overlooked when I wrote “Red Flags: Time Wasters & No-Shows,” but I remember them now…

The young and the beautiful: Clients under 30 years old, students of any age, and self-professed hot guys are extraordinarily likely to flake. Although a few will follow through, most of these are looking to get their egos stroked by getting a discount or freebie. If you agree, you have lost money; however, if you don’t relent, you are likely to get stood up. Beware of any client who tells you in some way that you will be lucky/glad/turned on by how young or beautiful he is. I take it with a grain of salt when “hot” people try to work me for their egos’ sakes. I am lucky/glad/turned on to have respectful, reliable clients. You would be best doing what I do: Schedule the young and the beautiful only if your itinerary is already full, and you can afford it when they flake out (which is why I am more amused than angry right now).

I haven’t written a practical blog for career advice in quite a while, so it’s time to do that. In light of two of my interactions here in San Francisco, I am reminded that I have meant to discuss this in the past: Timewasters.

In escorting, as with many other professions, time is money. And so people who waste time are particular problematic, especially in cities where overhead is naturally high (e.g. New York City, San Francisco, Miami, etc.). Time Wasters and No-Shows can completely undermine your trip, and you won’t know it’s happened in many cases until you are either en route or already at your destination. It is very important to identify red flags, so that you can minimize this problem.

As I said in “Street walkers, walking into Darkness” in April, 2010, you must be very organized. One way to do this is to screen clients via email, not phone calls and texts. By communicating through an on-going, written conversation, you can look for the following red flags:

• Fragments: A client is more likely to flake if he does not communicate in full sentences via email.
• Extreme delays: If it takes a client more than 2 days to reply every time you exchange email he is more likely to flake.
• Sudden, urgent messages: If a client (particularly one you do not yet know) is eager to meet NOW, then he is just as likely to masturbate and flake, or to contact several escorts at once and go with the one who replies first. You should generally avoid last minutes, especially if they write in fragments. These often commit the following faux pas as well:
• Haggling: Your fee is your fee. If it is fair, then do not come down off of it, or you crack the door open on desperation, and that is a slippery slope into degrading compromises. Even if someone relents and agrees to your fee, what will you do when he shows up and has only that amount he originally offered you? If he can’t afford you, you can’t afford him. Also, he may agree, set up the appointment, and then flake because he didn’t have the money in the first place.
• Waffling: If someone needs to adjust the date and time once, that’s fairly common. Even twice doesn’t seem so bad; however, if someone keeps messing with the time, or in some way seems to question coming, he is much more likely to flake.
• Excessive communication and Psychic Vampires: The opposite problem of Fragments and Extreme Delays. There is a difference between hearing regularly from an established client (who is also a friend) and getting more updates than are needed from an unknown/new client (especially when the correspondences don’t add any new or pertinent information to the ensuing appointment). There is a fairly good chance these men will not show up, because they’ve already gotten everything from you they needed for free. If the person in question is a good, reliable client/friend, then obviously this does not apply.
• Disappearance: If the communication feels good, the appointment is scheduled and confirmed by all parties, but then the client no longer replies to messages in any form (e.g. voicemail, texts, email), he is likely to have changed his mind and simply doesn’t want to deal with canceling. This is extremely problematic, because you can’t know how to proceed. I suggest getting ready in case the appointment happens, but not to be too surprised if it doesn’t.
• ADDED 1/28/11: The young and the beautiful: Clients under 30 years old, students of any age, and self-professed hot guys are extraordinarily likely to flake. Although a few will follow through, most of these are looking to get their egos stroked by getting a discount or freebie. If you agree, you have lost money; however, if you don’t relent, you are likely to get stood up. Beware of any client who tells you in some way that you will be lucky/glad/turned on by how young or beautiful he is. I take it with a grain of salt when “hot” people try to work me for their egos’ sakes. I am lucky/glad/turned on to have respectful, reliable clients. You would be best doing what I do: Schedule the young and the beautiful only if your itinerary is already full, and you can afford it when they flake out (which is why I am more amused than angry right now).

All of this works both ways. Clients can look at the above and decide whether or not an escort is unreliable as well. In addition to this, clients will often fare better when selecting escorts who have multiple affirming reviews. If you are particularly interested in an unreviewed escort consider that he is more likely to flake under the following conditions:

• Hometown player: He’s not on the road, and doesn’t have to cover the overhead of travel.
• Youth: The young… Need we say more?
• Underpriced: There are a couple issues here. Is he willing to provide full escorting services at a price that seems too low? Why? Is he not the person in the pics (but hopes you’ll let him stay, since it’s easier than searching again – his fee is low after all)? Is he going to do add-ons unexpectedly? His base fee is the low fee, but this is $x and that is $y? Attaching a fee to a sexual activity is prostitution, and that is illegal in most places. Another consideration: If his fee is low he has less to lose by not showing up, so the incentive to keep the appointment is reduced.
• Porn Stars: Just because someone is a brilliant video model, it doesn’t guarantee he is a good companion. Look for reviews.
• Short term ads: Take your time. Watch the ads. The guys with faceless pics who advertise only a few days aren’t likely to be professional. Professionals maintain a web presence through ads, blogs, and other forms of consistent interactivity with the public. Traveling escorts will often have multiple ads, and one of them may be permanent, or the escort will make it easy to find himself in a consistent manner. Three-day hustlers often have an array of complications attached to them, and are very likely to flake.

I work in a service-based industry (ahem). And this means that I, as much as (if not more than) anyone else in customer service, have to contend with the maxim “The customer is always right;” however, I find that I need to express some thoughts about this, given the extremely personal nature of my business. Although all salesmen know “the customer is always right,” they also know that this is always true (except for when the customer is wrong).

I think that it is important to remember that adult entertainers are people (indeed, this has been my underlying mantra since the day I first started writing this blog). As such, it is a client’s responsibility to remember certain boundaries and to use good manners. If you make an appointment, you should keep it. Being flippant about this very important detail belies a complete lack of respect and is fairly intolerable (whether the escort is new and vulnerable or established and accommodating). Vacillating on the time, expressing new expectations/interests at the last minute, or asking for lots of extra discussion (once everything has already been clearly arranged) are obstacles to the escort enjoying his time with you. Also, escorts (with some exceptions) are not your significant others: Jealousy is very unbecoming.

This weekend I had to re-establish the boundaries with multiple clients who had been testing the limits of my large reserve of patience. I am fairly certain I will not hear from either of them again, and (as anyone in business will tell you) there are some clients who are better left to find other vendors. They cause more trouble, demand more time/attention/energy, drain more personal resources, and/or impose too much of their political/personal beliefs, and become more of a liability than an asset. Most clients are awesome: They are respectful, conscientious, and well-mannered people who mind boundaries, because they want theirs remembered in return. But sometimes you will meet a client who costs you more than he keeps you.

I do not like being stern and impatient, but once I have been generous of my time and energy for weeks or months and have seen no results (or multiple cancellations), I have to finally accept that someone is a time waster. Beware of potential clients for whom there are always complications and/or excuses. Treat them with respect, but do not allow them to fritter away your energy.

Warning for DC boys: A time waster’s method 

Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, shame and plague on you… fool me thrice, and I tell everyone on the internet about your bullshit…

If you are a companion in Washington, D.C. there is a particular time waster you need to know about who is cruising the ads right now. He almost undermined my entire trip by filling up my schedule and then not showing up to any of the bookings. He is clever, and it took three times for me to put together all the similarities of his scam, and now I will share them with you, so that you do not risk losing not only the opportunity to see clients, but also the money the trip costs to go to D.C. The three instances I am about to describe were spaced out over weeks, and did not happen in even/rapid succession.

Clue #1: Totally ordinary (and complete) name revealed in message/address
This person uses ordinary names. He changed it for each time he contacted me, obviously. The names he used are not obvious fakes like John Smith. They are just ordinary enough to seem real. Although these are not the names he used, they set an example: Brian Fannerty. Jimmy Copeland. Frank Westerman. They sound like real names… He was too sophisticated to go for over-the-top names like Rex Hammer, or some porno sounding crap like that.

Clue #2: Gmail server
All three of these “people” had username@gmail.com emails. Take particular note in D.C. if you get an email from a GMail account with a perfectly normal first and last name put together as a compound word or separated by a period. (e.g. brianfannerty@gmail.com or brian.fannerty@gmail.com) Although not unheard of, most people will contact you with an email that does NOT reveal their entire name. Most people prefer more discretion than that, until they become acquainted with you.

Clue #3: Extended appointments
All three jumped right into asking about multiple hour sessions. “I have a birthday I want to celebrate with an overnight;” “I just broke up with a boyfriend, and I want to go a little crazy;” and “I got a raise, and I had the extra money burning a hole in my pocket.” Although I didn’t ask for an explanation from these “people,” I was offered overly plausible reasons for wanting long/overnight sessions on first meetings. All three ultimately went from 2-, 3-, or 4-hour sessions straight to overnights with no suggestion from me to do so.

Clue #4: Questionable photos (given without being asked)
All three attached photos within a few emails. I never ask for this. If someone wants to share his pics he may do so, but I never ask or insist on it. All three ended up attaching photos that I didn’t think seemed authentic, but I wasn’t going to question. However, the pics from the third “individual” were what finally made all of this click into place. (If you find yourself in this scenario in D.C., and you find yourself looking at a photo and thinking “Hm, I wouldn’t have expected that” for any reason… well… there you have it.)

Clue #5: Dead email, phone number
For all three the GMail addy stopped working days before my trip or during it. For one of them the phone number had also been disconnected (yes, I’d spoken at length with one of the “individuals” on the phone, and since he was the “first” to contact me, but the “second” to disappear, I had zero reason to be suspicious about connecting the three together).

I ended up having a good trip to D.C., so I thwarted this; however, I did leave early when I started not feeling well. Despite this person’s overly thorough efforts, I did just fine. Just sayin’…