How to Identify a Time Waster
By: Isobel Andrews
Tags: Safety, Escorts, Sex Work, Business, Entrepreneurship

We all get them — the vague, non-committal inquiries, shorthand text, and other nonsense crowding our DMs, emails and texts from “clients” who have no real intention to be anything but time wasters. What’s a time waster, you ask? It’s someone who contacts you with no intention to book a date, but wants to suck up your valuable time and emotional energy. They have many ways of doing this, and some are sneakier than others. It can be hard for the novice sex worker to identify when someone is sincere in their inquiry, and when they’re just being an ass. Compounding this is when down times happen in the biz, and any inquiry can seem like a good one. We’ve all been through it. After a lively discussion on twitter, here are — in no particular order — some of your best ways on how to quickly learn when someone is wasting your time.

loladavina knows what’s up!

1. Not reading your information.

This one kills me. When someone contacts me and asks questions that are so clearly answered in my ad or website, it really gets my goat — especially when these questions are paired with one- and two-phrase emails or texts, and especially when those text and emails are with short hand.

A real client will take the time to read over your ad, website, twitter profile, or whatever it is you’ve posted, because they’re sincere in booking and want to make sure they get it right when contacting you. As an example of this, a sincere client will likely look over your rates to see if you’re within his budget, whereas a timewaster will probably balk when you tell him what your rate is (whatever that is), and possibly try to haggle or respond in some other rude way.

2. Vague language.

These can include a string of communication that includes non-committal language, such as “perhaps”, “maybe”, “might”, and “could work”, among others. It gives the impression someone is interested, but if you read the fine print, none of their words have any amount of definitive planning. When asked to confirm or clarify, an escort is likely met with silence or perhaps the guy is evading the question with random garbage replies that contain completely irrelevant information and when you call them on it, they get defensive or ghost. Good riddance, I say.

3. Using way too much shorthand or having really bad grammar.

I’m a professional and I conduct myself accordingly, and that includes all forms of written communication. When someone connects with me to book a date, how they communicate is a clear indicator of their seriousness. In my experience, those communicating with an abundance of “U avail”/ “how ru”/ “can i see u” in their messages have not turned out to be anything worth attending to. There are exceptions to this rule no doubt, and some providers reciprocate this form of communication so perhaps there’s a whole club of folks that think it’s ok to speak with each other like this, I dunno.

As an example, let’s say I wanted to apply for a line of credit and sent an email to my branch manager about it that went something along the lines of, “Hey, how ru, need sum $, how much can u give”. I don’t think it would go over very well, and I can’t imagine any bank would want to do much business with me if that’s how I got on most of the time. Similarly, if you receive an email from a guy that speaks in a similar tongue to the above note, chances are he’s not overly serious about doing business with you.

A caveat: many folks I communicate with do not speak English as a native language and may not have perfect grammar and communication, and that’s ok. These people are welcome in my world, because I guarantee you they can communicate in English better than I can in <insert foreign language here>. It’s the lazy folks that can’t be arsed to type a few extra letters in a word, that I’m not interested in hearing from, and you shouldn’t be either. Piss off.

4. An overabundance of compliments.

Ah yes, the glorification of every move you make, every breath you take, they’re watching.. (cue Sting!). Some of these time wasters will start their communiqué with a plethora of compliments about your beauty, charm, personality, wit, intelligence or whatever. They’ll waste lines and lines of copy telling you how amazing you are and how lucky they are to be even thinking of booking with you because (*gasp*) they are so nervous, and what did they do to even deserve to be in the company of such a beautiful person anyhow, and, and …

Please, spare me. Guys like these are trying to set you up for the big fall to come — that they refuse screening, haven’t read your info, or are going to put forth some ridiculous request, for example flying to Morocco to meet with a Saudi Prince. Oh but you’ll have to buy your own ticket, and he’s not sending screening or a deposit (true story, babes!)

If a guy starts off with adulation beyond a few words, stop reading his email and hit delete. Bye Felipe.

5. Self-aggrandizing language.

What’s worse than a guy who won’t shut up about how amazing you are? A guy who won’t shut up about how amazing HE is, that’s what!

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, this Noble Fool will apotheosize his every simple act, trait and gesture, usually with big words and complicated language (see what I did there?) If you’ve ever seen Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, picture Professor Gilderoy Lockhart sitting behind his laptop, gushing on about just how fabulous he really is, and that — by golly — you should be paying him for the pleasure!

Many of these guys are quick to extol their own virtues, but when it comes time to give the important details — screening, deposits, date logistics — they suddenly clam right up. Huh.. cat got your tongue?

6. Refusing to screen and/or provide deposits.

Sigh. Are we really still talking about this? I wrote an article a while back discussing the necessity of screening in our business, and in my experience serious clients will provide some sort of screening for you; time wasters won’t. The worst of the excuses come out for this.

“I don’t know your real name, why should you know mine?” “You might take my deposit and try to scam me.” “I’m really well known, I don’t want my identity disclosed.” “I’m new.”

The interesting thing is that screening can take many, many forms and guaranteed there’s going to be one way to suit the serious client, but the time waster will try to get around all of them. I always find it laughable when clients tell me “how important” they are and that they can’t risk having their information known. Bitch, please. Screen or GTFO.

7. Multiple emails or texts back and forth without any intention to book you.

Here presents the man who will ask endless questions (many of which are already on your website), make elaborate requests, or perhaps regale you about the type of date he’d like to have with you. He will extend the length of communication, using all the evasive tricks he can to get you to keep talking without committing to anything. Maybe he’s asking for photos (you know, to prove you’re “real”), or trying to get you to sell him on why he should be booking, even though he contacted you first (wtf?).

A serious client will be straightforward, provide the info you requested, give meeting times/days and generally act like a decent human being.

8. Late-hour emails/texts with any of the above.

Check out the timestamp on this one.

If you’re a night owl and take all the after hours crew, this doesn’t apply to you. But I’m an 80 year old woman living in a hooker’s body, and I go to bed at 9. You can damn well be sure I am NOT awake at 3 am waiting for the barrage of “hey bb” texts asking if I’m “avail”. For those of us who generally function on a diurnal rather than nocturnal circadian rhythm, contacting me at this hour never brings anything good. Thankfully I turn my phone off so as not to disrupt my precious sleep. If you are also of the daylight hours, then you can probably ignore those folks trying to slide into your DMs in the middle of the night while they try to unwire themselves from whatever activities they were up to for the evening.

9. If it sounds too good to be true, run.

It’s easy to get roped into what sounds like an amazing deal but if something sounds way too good to be true, it probably is. What does this look like?

Offering way over your rate.

Extravagant shopping trips, travel, luxury, and all things related.

Wanting an extended date or overnight without ever meeting you (although sometimes this works in your favour and is actually legit).

Claims to be some famous person/big deal.

Wants to try to “rescue” you from this job forever.

There are plenty more. Now, it’s not to say that travel, shopping, gifts, and whatnot aren’t par for the course in the world of escorting; they definitely are but they may take some time to acquire, and many clients will not want to offer the world to you, sight unseen. Also, anyone that promises to “take care” of you if you’d “only leave this business”, is a lying piece of shit. You don’t need rescuing, and you don’t need that asshole trying to control you. Move on.

TL;DR

Good common sense necessitates having an understanding of how people communicate well, and how they communicate poorly. It’s likely a time waster will combine more than one of the tactics above to void you of your precious time and energy. By being a savvy sex worker, you can filter the noise and save yourself the trouble of dealing with people who have no intention to book you.

Connect with me online!

Twitter — @lafemmeisobel

Web — https://www.isobelandrews.com