I'm a relative newbie to the hobby but after a rather dreadful experience tonight I've come to a few important conclusions:

1) Filter your potential providers by double-digit reviews. Any provider who lacks at least ten reviews simply isn't credible. I was sucked in by someone with just three reviews. During our session, she conceded that the first two were completely made up and written by friends and that the third reviewer made up things that never occurred. My sense of all this is that if a provider has at least ten reviews, you can reasonably assume that at least some of them are for real. Otherwise, chances are very good that the reviews were written by the provider herself or by a friend or two who is simply trying to help.

2) Stay clear of the 20-something babes. Sadly, there are a lot of sweet, but profoundly confused, young things out there who are just desperate for cash. They're not into the hobby. They're not especially into men. They're amateurs in the sex department. They're into doing as little as possible to help meet their bills. They're not all that smart or sophisticated. They're just sad and lost. That was the case of the attractive 25-year-old blonde I met tonight. She said her parents divorced at five and her father died when she was 19. She's a psych major putting herself through college and in the biz for all of five months. Nothing wrong with that, but she has no business in this business--because she has no desire to please a man, only a desire to meet the rent on a high rise apartment. Anyone below the age of 30 should pretty much be disqualified from consideration.

3) Pay a lot of attention to pre-session emails and/or telephone calls. If you ask a question and it goes unanswered or unaddressed, that's a red flag that should encourage you to cancel. If you have agreed to a certain time and you haven't received an email, text message or phone call at least a full hour before the scheduled session, cancel. In my case, I didn't hear from the provider until the time of our appointment, despite an email and a phone call.

Now, of course, there are exceptions. But unless you have unlimited funds, why chance it? Just not worth the gamble. And if you are a betting man, you might allow one of these strikes to try someone out but never move forward when a provider has two or three strikes against her.

One last note: You might ask why I didn't give this woman a bad review. Frankly, it's because I feel sorry for her.