ChrisWrestling's blog

This kind of comes from several interactions I have had leading up to my trip to Brazil as well as conversations I've had here. Now, keep in mind, this is my first real trip abroad where I have been a real minority who is vulnerable for not speaking the language, knowing the culture, or knowing how to stay safe. The US has a tendency to fearmonger about Brazil more than I feel is actually deserved but that doesn't mean that extra precautions shouldn't be taken. The quality of living standards here are notably lower than Seattle which leaves the place a little unkempt and sketchier looking. That being said, I had a lovely stroll tonight to a restaurant by myself and back to my hotel and it was kind of the first time where I felt that the place was actually pretty nifty.

To prepare for being a foreigner I reached out to several guys, two of them were happy to have me stay with them and the first one so far were great hosts (Brat Tamer and his boyfriend). I mostly knew what I was getting into with them and while in some ways my expectations weren't perfectly met they were truly fantastic hosts and we spent most of the time together laughing (not to mention that they are an adorable couple who are obviously head over heels for one another, so cute). As we got closer to actually meeting we moved to WhatsApp as MF has a tendency to go down. They were also forthcoming with where I was going.

This is part of why I'm writing this post as I'm sitting here in my last minute hotel after GOL (the airline) bumped me from my flight to one early tomorrow morning. This was partly my fault as I was supposed to fly to Sao Paulo tonight and stay in Osasco to meet someone else tomorrow. I chose not to because Osasco is not a nice place I was eager to stay in and it was really starting to look like my opponent tomorrow was going to flake on me.

You see, the first impressions people have of you are when they either see your watchfighters channel or read your profile and too many people just say fuck it with their profiles. The person in question was good on both those fronts which is why I wanted to meet him. He also has a significant number of supposedly happy past opponents. As much as I like the past opponents feature of this site it is far too easy to flag someone and then get flagged in return with no real moderation of flagging so as much as having 50+ recommendations on your profile is... it doesn't mean you can phone in the rest.

Flakes have a tendency to withhold information like specific locations, external communication requests, and the person in question was dodging those questions. I've seen it plenty of times and one would hope it wouldn't happen when you've flown 18+ hours to be somewhere to meet someone and you aren't confident in the safety of the location. It also didn't help that the people I stayed with and several of the people I'm meeting in this trip voiced that the person in question had a big ego, wasn't comfortable with their sexuality, and has a bad attitude if they don't win. Yikes!

So I asked him again for the critical info and he didn't respond leading me to tell him that I had decided to change my itinerary and that I would be skipping Sao Paulo and going straight to Rio to which he responded toxically.

The lesson I hope people take from this is that your profile/watchfighters is nothing more than a resume, your conversations are an interview to determine if you are a fit. In these conversations is does no one any good to misrepresent yourself in any way. No one is expecting a perfect fit but honesty and authenticity go a very long way... as does enthusiasm. I say that last bit because no one wants to roll with someone who isn't enthusiastic about meeting you. Logistics, especially with out of towners is not something you can dodge or ignore. As I said before, people are not motivated to flag bad actors unless something is really off so as great as it is to have a lot of reviews (which often supplement what you say about yourself in your profile), they don't tell the whole story so it is up to you to tell your story, control your narrative. You can be picky with who you play with and one should never be upset when someone isn't interested in you as turning you down is not nearly as bad as meeting up and having a play-date go south. Yes, get your needs met, if you've done your homework you will meet someone who wants to do that and in kind you should be focusing on meeting the needs of your play partner.

If I'm honest, only about 1% of people on here really understand this and that's really too bad. Shine your brightest most authentic self, it's ok, someone is looking for someone just like you so help them find you.