I booked my first escort about six months ago. Not because I could not find other ways to meet people, but because the loneliness after my divorce had settled into something I could not shift. I lived alone in a flat in Rathmines. My kids came every other weekend. The rest of the time the place was very quiet.
A friend mentioned it, not in a pressuring way, just mentioned it the way you would mention a restaurant. I thought about it for weeks. Then I did it.
The first booking was awkward. Not because she was anything other than professional and kind. She was both. But I did not know how to be in the situation. I did not know where to sit. I did not know whether to make conversation first or just get on with it. I chose conversation and that turned out to be the right call. We talked for about twenty minutes before anything else happened. She asked about my week. I told her about the kids. She seemed genuinely interested, or she was very good at seeming so. Either way it helped.
By the time we got to the point of things I was relaxed enough that the whole experience was quite good. I went home and felt strange for about an hour. Not guilty exactly. Strange. Like something had shifted slightly. The next morning I woke up and it had settled into something neutral. I had done a thing. It had gone fine.
I have had three more bookings since. Each one has been different. I have started to understand what I am looking for when I read a profile. I have made mistakes, booked people I was not right for and vice versa. But I have also had some genuinely good experiences. I do not know how to explain what I mean by that without it sounding either pathetic or dishonest. So I will not try. What I will say is that I am glad it exists as an option and I think about it honestly now rather than with the mixture of guilt and longing I had before the first time.