Three Four Zero: Education

 I have been thinking more about the idea of paid companions and FMTY girls. There's something to be said for an essay looking at the difference between a GFE companion and the FMTY girls at Escort Twitter. And that's a difference that goes to something in my own life.

GFE girls exist to...what? Well, they exist to make their clients think they're not with a paid companion. Or at least they exist to make people who see their clients think that the client isn't with a paid companion. Does that sound right? 

The bios of FMTY girls seem to stress that they have the social capital to be in Michelin-star restaurants and elegant settings, that they know how to perform the role of someone used to such settings. What they perform is...class. And that does leave me just a bit melancholy.

I have always thought of myself as having social capital. I know that I suffer from what David Brooks called the "income/status disjoint"-- I have advanced degrees and I'm reasonably well-read...but I have no money and I don't have the accoutrements of the monied classes. As someone who has managed to project the idea of genteel poverty most of his life, I've been able to function on the edges of the social world. I can function well at small hipster cafes and restaurants, but I'd never risk a Michelin-star restaurant or a high-end hotel. I'd certainly never risk going to a resort. And I'd never, never risk a conversation with a beautiful woman who knew anything about business, finance, or the mechanics of politics.

A friend asked me the other evening what I looked for in relationships. I wasn't sure how to answer. What could I say? Someone lovely, long-legged, a fraction of my age, and averse to underwear? Someone with a Comparative Lit degree who likes obscure books? Someone who'll call me late at night and talk about wonderfully random things while flirting shamelessly?

What I do know is that I'd be really, really at sea across a table from an FMTY girl. From what I can infer, part of the arrangement between an FMTY girl and her client is that they go out to high-end venues. Part of what she gives the client is the chance to show off his social skills and his knowledge. She markets herself as someone who has the beauty and social capital to be shown off, and part of what he gets is the opportunity to feel like he belongs in her company. I'd be awful at that.

I think that what I'd look for in an FMTY girl would be someone to be a kind of life coach for me. I'd be the one who wants to be taught how to fit in. Look-- I know which fork to use, and I can read the French on a menu. What I can't do is feel like I fit in. Walking into a restaurant with a Michelin star would trigger a massive case of Impostor Syndrome, even if I had on my magical class ring from New Haven. Checking into an elegant resort for a long weekend with an FMTY girl would make me instantly feel like I was adrift in an alien world. 

I'd be asking my companion to...make me feel like I fit in. I know how to hold a conversation at an "Asian street food" restaurant in a hip neighborhood near a university. I know how to walk through a serious museum. But being at any of the places the FMTY girls post on the Twitter timelines would leave me anxious, depressed, and empty. Yes, the terms of the arrangement might ensure that I'd be having sex with a very beautiful, sexually skilled companion, but I'd nonetheless feel that I'd botched the part of the evening devoted to seduction and flirtation. And, yes, I'd feel like I'd failed. I'd feel like I hadn't lived up to the skills my companion relied on in her clients-- like I didn't have social capital enough to understand and appreciate what she was offering me. 

A life coach. That's what I do need-- a life coach. Someone who could make me feel less anxious. Someone who could teach me to appreciate what she's offering. I can read the French on a menu, but I won't understand what the dishes are. I have a couple of tailored black blazers, but I don't own a suit. I have no idea how to hold a conversation with someone who talks about things that aren't obscure books and films. I have no idea how to be with someone like an FMTY girl, and I have no idea whatsoever how to have an evening with someone who's at home in the social world. I have no idea how to perform outside of a very well-fortified niche.

I'd make an FMTY girl feel like she was wasting her time, whatever fee she was getting. I wouldn't even know what kind of gift cards to send her. I'd be a disappointment from the moment she met me at the aerodrome or in the hotel lobby.

Three Three Nine: Gates

 Here in the new year, I'm still reading along with Escort Twitter. 

I'm still amazed by many of the FMTY girls, and I'm envious of some of the travel photos they post. I read their Twitter biographies and find myself thinking about what kind of evening I'd have with a "champagne bubble about town" or a girl who describes herself as "your breathtaking dinner date". These days, dinner dates are rare enough for me, even those that aren't highly-skilled and highly-compensated professional companions who'd be at home in Michelin-star restaurants. 

The question remains, of course-- even if I could afford a professional companion's fees, why would someone at their level of skill want anything to do with me? Here in the new year, I am aware of some things. It seems far too clear to me that I'd never make it through a FMTY girl's first round of screening.

Over the last few days, I've been reading Twitter threads about the screening process. I understand the need for screening. Please don't get me wrong about that. An escort, even at the level of FMTY girls, faces risks to her safety. Screening is something necessary. And I have no problem with that. I could pass a basic screening using official records. I am not, as they used to say on "Law & Order", in the system. If my fingerprints are on file anywhere, it's only because I once went through the opening rounds of applying for a State Department job. 

What I'd be afraid of, though, is that somewhere, somehow, there's a long blog post by some now-forgotten ex telling the world what an Awful Person I am. That would be exactly what an FMTY girl would find when she was vetting me. I've no doubt she'd find something like that-- something that would raise a whole Comintern annual congress worth of red flags. And somewhere out there over the aether there would be long-ago blog posts or social media threads I'd made with a train of hostile comments in response. She'd find that, too. Here in the new century, hostile social media comments would be damning. That seems to be the way it works.

We won't talk about financial vetting. I'm unclear about exactly how that would work, but the idea of it terrifies me. A year and a half ago I bought a new vehicle, and the dealership looked at my credit report and was willing to finance a respectable car. But I have no idea what a credit report would turn up now-- that's not the sort of thing I'd ever check out about myself. I might well have saved up cash for a professional companion's fees-- perhaps at least once I could leave that elegant envelope full of $100 bills on the bathroom counter in a stylish hotel, or perhaps I could slide an envelope with a $500 gift card at some high-end lingerie boutique across a table. Maybe. Maybe. But I'd never survive a credit check...or at least I tell myself that. I could never risk letting a potential companion have the information they'd need for a credit check on me. 

I tell myself that I have credentials. I do have post-graduate degrees. I am reasonably well-read. I have some-- some --social capital. I know which fork to use, and I can appreciate gallery hangings and classical music. But my credentials would never be enough. I'd never know what to say.  A high-end professional companion would feel her own talents wasted around me. 

I would not do well with a professional companion-- I'd certainly never survive even a cursory vetting. There's the soul-crushing vision where I contact an FMTY girl and then-- always after a few pleasant initial DM exchanges, or perhaps after a meeting for coffee --I'm screened out. I can't survive a critical analysis. And of course what applies to Escort Twitter applies even more rigorously in civilian life.