I may not have been in the enthusiast side but I think I agree with both sides. A lot of enthusiasts want to feel that genuine mutual acceptance and once you factor in money, it takes that genuine feeling away (for some). I could say to every single one of my clients that a cuddle with me is always comforting and accepting and blah blah blah. I totally mean every word I say but I also understand the reluctance to pay for this service. I’ll ignore certain guys that call me and the others: escorts and money hungry girls. I’d like to focus on the enthusiasts that truly need that acceptance and someone to talk to. I think most of the clients that come to me know that they will get 100% of the attention they need while cuddling with another enthusiast may sometimes not be fulfilling because it needs to be a 50/50 feeling.
I totally agree that there should be a little bit more done to vet those that want to make a living doing this. It’s definitely frustrating the amount of people on here I’ve had to report because some women come on here and immediately become pro, charge $120/hour, have cleavage filled photos and have winky faces all over their description. Gives the pros that truly care a bad name as well. I’ve been told by quite a few that if I truly cared, I wouldn’t charge. That’s a little rude to say because isn’t one of the main goals in life finding a job you love? A job making money? Doing what you love? That’s what I’m doing. I understand it’s mostly coming from people that don’t want to pay for the service and I’m fine to tell them no and look elsewhere. I also understand the frustration though. I’d like to not have to report as many of the newbies as I have been by getting the process to become a little more difficult. Pretty please? Rant over ☺️
@TouchIsTLC
You seem to live in a fantasy where doing a background check will always reveal the information needed to see a potential client. It is unrealistic and wishful thinking to rely on background checks alone when many people are not charged with the violent crimes they commit. A background check will not say if someone has a history of sexual violence or physical violence unless they have been charged with a crime.
Apparently the notion that people can be violent or dangerous without being reported is a new concept to you.
Regardless, again, I did not deserve your condensation or your rudeness.
@Sheena123 I very much agree with you that the process should be more difficult. I share that frustration as well.
@babestorm Yes it was a joke at pros’ expense but the pros do not seem to have a problem jumping in on a topic that was not aimed at them to begin with. If you look further at what I said at a later post I said I do value pros and I have cuddled as many as four pros in a week (it was after a death in the family). So I do not look down on you but I do feel that pros need to grow a thicker skin as far as the forum goes and understand that not everything is an attack on them.
@TouchIsTLC I am on board with your comment on tone and words as it is along the lines of what I have been saying. And yes there is more than one pro that I have gone to their area before and eliminated them from the pile because of their words in the forum. I definitely do not want to enter into any session with even the slightest feeling of animosity. But some pros do not seem to grasp basic tenets of PR or customer service even if they are excellent at their job.
@Sheena123 This was a very balanced and thought out response from you. Much respect to you and much different from the other responses from pros on this thread who come across a bit too touchy and preachy. I would definitely look you up when I am in your town because you demonstrated the meaning of empathy and you have mine as a result.
@FunCartel aw thanks ☺️ Anytime you’re near Toronto or Tampa Florida, I’m in those areas! You seem like a very respectful person who understands the trials and tribulations of both sides! 💙
Enthusiasts and non-pros are doing quite well here and I doubt if we're all disappearing and going pro. Personal mileage may vary, but I've had great luck with both pro and non-pro. Folks, welcome to the internet. If you haven't been 1) blocked or 2) ignored or 3) disparaged before then 4) you may not have been online very long. Having trouble connecting with someone? Go back to basics and check yourself and your communications: be kind, be yourself, be patient, but also don't expect a damn thing so that you're not disappointed.
Thanks, @Mark , for stepping in and clarifying, and I'm sorry that innuendo and this thread made you have to do so.
@Sideon the OP was referring to the number of non-pros. They are not as numerous as they once were. I do not think he was having trouble connecting with anyone. He was just wondering why.
Overall, I have cuddled with many of the professionals. I find them friendly, comforting and understanding of their clients needs. I have also established myself with a few and have gotten to know them. I think that it's what you want to get out of this service that matters. Hourly rate or not!!!
The other thing that I find is that how you treat the professional counts. I personally treat them like people rather than objects that you can rent for a few hours and say goodbye to. It goes a long way in how a session goes.
@Lev136 Again, this thread is about the dwindling number of non-pros. I understand what you are saying about pros and that is what I do with all the people I encounter in a Cuddle session. Unfortunately, that is not the topic of this thread.
@FunCartel - that's hilarious, especially after your tangent:
"That is interesting that the site owner is soliciting non-pros to become pros. Surprised everyone glossed over your point. If I find this to be true, I am out of here. I do not tolerate hypocrisy well except my own."
But whatever.
@Mark "What we NEVER do and will never do is encourage enthusiasts to go Pro."
I've added a sentence to the end of the relevant FAQ question:
Website -> How is it funded?
Note that Cuddle Comfort does not attempt to recruit professionals from within the website; in fact the founder @Mark has a preference for more enthusiasts joining the site. (In rare cases a person might be contacted to clarify how to become a professional, but only if it is obvious that they joined with that intention; see this comment).
@FunCartel , I think my response has something to do with the dwindling number of non - pros. I personally, do not have any problems with it since all have a choice in what they want to do and some people choose not to become pro. As for me, I enjoy the professionals who I see.
I also in general find that those who start out as enthusiasts and then turn pro. don't last long. They will think it's easy, pub up a profile, write something good and the men will come pouring in. Like anything else it takes time to develop a number of clientele or customers. Many don't realize that.
@Sideon Yes, a poster said he was told by two people that were non-pros that they were solicited by the site to become pro. I found that relevant to the topic of dwindling enthusiasts. I did not create that—it was from a previous post. But if you can’t see the relevancy then whatever.
Wait .... You mean i could get paid???? Dont mind me guys im being silly
@Lev136 I see. And I see both for very different reasons. Your advice applies to everyone, pro and non-pro. On a side note, I do know a couple of enthusiasts that were originally pros, so it does go both ways. One said she stopped being a pro because she professed to helping people but charged for cuddling and said she kind of felt like a hypocrite for doing so. Another said she was getting her boundaries pushed constantly and no longer has that problem as an enthusiast.
@Myrddyn You really put it in perspective for me and I'd like to thank you. I'm referring to the whole message thing. There's no reason why a simple hello has to go unanswered for the sake of trying to connect before actually meeting. The only thing I have an issue with is when I get 2 "hello where'd you goes" and then a"bleep you then" if I don't respond fast enough. There should be a balance and as pros, we should try our best to respond to every message. Thank you
It all makes me want to find another site to be honest, or just occasionally hug a friend. I find it hard to get much out of a pro session because in the back of your head you know they are just being paid to do what they are doing and that is a lot different then just some person who likes you and would like to hug you. Totally understand the business side of it though and sometime we all just feel we need a hug bad enough to cought up a couple hundred. But if that is the case then I wish it would just be business-like, I don't want a pro to try to pretend to want to make friends, that is kind of annoying and a little bit insulting.
@melancholy yep. on both points.
@respectful
"I've added a sentence to the end of the relevant FAQ question" "[...] In rare cases a person might be contacted to clarify how to become a professional, but only if it is obvious that they joined with that intention"
"I've added a sentence to the end of the relevant FAQ question"
"[...] In rare cases a person might be contacted to clarify how to become a professional, but only if it is obvious that they joined with that intention"
Great. I would just suggest replacing 'rare cases' with 'sometimes'. Untagged Pros get reported all the time due to this.
The only thing that is rare to non-existent is mistakenly doing this process for genuine enthusiasts.
@Zundar nailed it on his post when he said there is a "snowball effect for non-pro's converting to pro's". He is talking about a Nash Equilibrium that is currently happening. In game theory, there is an optimal strategy where everyone has max benefits that only work if everyone cooperates.
But when you don't know what strategy others will play, you make inter-dependent decisions that benefit you the most, forcing others to compensate their strategies based on yours, so on and so forth until the system creates an equilibrium where no one else can gain by changing their strategy. This is often not optimal for all parties, but it is stable because everyone is equally penalized.
The Matrix Reloaded explained it best with their lesson on actions and consequences. To explain it another way, because of our culture and physiological differences, the average woman has a greater opportunity to find a cuddle partner than the average man does. Because of this imbalance, in general, women get more attention than men.
Whether in real life or online, women cannot reasonably respond to every man that initiates them. The woman out in public that is being hit on by the 20th guy that night would waste her whole night if she gave everyone an equal chance to get to know them. The consequences of this are that women have been forced to develop strategies to shut down this barrage of "nice guys" before it eats up her whole night.
Similarly online, a woman on CuddleComfort finds herself with 20 new messages when she gets home from work. Even if she is a fast typer and spends just 5 minutes reading and responding to each one, that will still eat up over an hour and a half (if it doesn't turn into a conversation) that she could have been doing something more productive. What if this was every night? What strategies are available to her?
She could just ignore a lot of them to help her manage her time better. The consequence might be that the ignored guys get frustrated and don't know what to do other than send more messages to her, or simply message even more women to improve his odds of getting a response. This just compounds the problem of more attention across more women.
She could quit the site, but this also compounds the problem because the ratio of men and women are skewed even more, making the remaining women get ever-multiplying amounts of attention.
There is a tool she could use by registering as a pro. Besides the obvious financial benefits, it will also filter out a lot of this attention to make sure she only invests her time into serious guys who are less motivated to carry on long time-consuming conversations. All the other guys not interested will now give the non-pros even more attention, once again compounding the problem.
It isn't necessarily greed or pro's thinking they are, or deserve better. They are simply using the best options to counter the strategies that men use on them. With the current layout of the game board, this is the natural conclusion of the Nash Equilibrium. If we think there is something wrong with the way it is stacked, maybe it's not women that need to change, but the men. The women, both pro's and non, they are just adapting to our dance steps, and us to them.
I am glad I have the option of both. I am going to factor these options into my retirement plan. There are many younger cuddlers here then older so I wonder when I reach retirement age what will I do. I am grateful for options because before this site I used to worry about my source of affection. I have felt spiritually better knowing u can always crossover your cuddle buddy is not available. So I feel like this community is great. It is a lot of work though I agree in the selective process of finding a good cuddle buddy. But totally worth the effort. 😁
@DonLonG
Interesting theory if we assume the premise is true. Personally I'm very skeptical that there is a meaningful percentage of female enthusiasts that organically decide to become professional cuddlers. I'm more inclined to believe this sense of change is a result of perception over reality. Pro cuddlers are far more active than non-pros and therefore naturally saturate the search results based on them being ranked primarily by 'Last Online'.
P.s. Great video!
@Mark you bring up a good point about perception and motivation. It just gave me a half dozen ideas. You just inspired me to start a new forum conversation.
There's lots of men that want to cuddle.. Why don't you cuddle with each other? It's only platonic. Hope you can see the hypocrisy on wanting to cuddle only with women.
My only comment on this topic is that I wish there was a popcorn emoji option to use while reading some threads like this one.
@SweetSophie. It is not being hypocritical. We all have preferences. I see women who said they only cuddled with women. I respect it and keep it moving. I want to make the most of cuddling. These days are men vs women. I don't want to view it that way. I say let every person do and be with who makes them comfortable
@MrCuddlenity in my experience is not.. 90% of men have made sexual advances. Men don't want only to cuddle they want more and that's why they don't cuddle with each other. Sadly you're only victims of your own urges so don't blame women blame men.