1. If a man (or indeed, woman) I had known less than a year suddenly paid off some bill or debt of mine, I would be extremely suspicious that that person wanted sexual favors, because we live in a culture where (mostly) men literally take us out to dinner and then announce that we owe them sex for that reason. Indeed, people change, and people you think are safe are not immune to "I will rescue you and then we will smash" disease. Someone I had known for nearly a decade and knew that I had a particular debt to repay announced that he had recently come into a large amount of money and wanted to help as many of his friends as he could, so would I let him pay this debt? I wasn't really in danger of having any
other money fall out of the sky on me, and I knew this guy as very nice and chill, so I stupidly allowed him to pay the debt. He didn't even wait a week before suddenly announcing how sexy he found me, and asking me on a date. The friendship came to a screeching halt because I thought he
meant "no strings attached," and while I have had some unusual jobs, sex work has not ever been, and is still not, one of them.
2. If I were looking for someone to live with/marry/etc., I would want someone who had experience living on their own or at least in an apartment with a roommate -- someone who had experience doing the tasks people call "adulting": making and sticking to a monthly household budget; shopping for groceries and supplies without going over that budget; not violating any of the terms of the lease (having a guest for longer than the allowable period, not buying a pet if the apartment didn't allow pets or if I were allergic to the thing they brought home; not smoking in a no-smoking home; etc.); not being an alcoholic or other type of addict; doing basic home maintenance tasks like replacing a washer in a faucet or putting a new screen in a window... there are a
lot of moving parts to deal with yourself, or with the help of your roommate/lover/whoever you're living with. If one of you has a dog, it needs to be fed/watered/walked. Fish tanks can be amazingly tricky to maintain properly. If that person has any physical or mental health issues, I'm happy to help out a bit, but while I'm not around them or awake, they are ultimately the one who has to maintain their own health.
I need to know that they can handle an emergency. One guy we had on these boards was asked by a psychiatrist what he would do if a fire started in his apartment. After some thought, this guy said he would text his aunt (who was his landlord). You have to be able to think a little more quickly than that, you know? No dangerous habits, like lighting a candle and falling asleep. I don't care if it's on the edge of the tub -- there's flammable shit in every bathroom. No dangerous handling of electricity. That kind of thing. If a person hasn't lived alone or with a roomie for any length of time, they may not have faced any of these issues. Do they remember to lock the doors/shut the windows/bring the cat in at night? It sounds simple but it's really not.
