I do not send a photograph first and I want to explain why

Every guide tells men to lead with a photograph. I have decided not to, and since it probably costs me replies, I should explain the reasoning rather than have it read as evasion.

Thirty three, Brooklyn. I have a job where being identified doing this would be a genuine problem, not a mild embarrassment, and a face is the one thing that cannot be retrieved once it is out. I am not hiding a wife or an appearance I am ashamed of. I am hiding from a specific professional risk that is real and that I have watched happen to somebody else.

What I will do instead is answer any question in writing at any length, meet in daylight in a public place fairly early on, and be entirely open in person about who I am and what I do. The face comes with the meeting rather than before it.

Three years in and all of it so far has been written, partly for that reason and partly because I am better at writing than I am at rooms. What I want is a structured arrangement with real duties, ideally with a woman who lives close enough that I can be useful on ordinary days rather than only on arranged ones.

I understand if this is a hard rule for somebody. I would only ask that it be read as a man being careful rather than a man being coy, because the difference matters and I cannot demonstrate it from here.