First off, this probably will be a long long post, English isn't my native language and I'm stuck on my phone, because the weather took down the power line. That's why...

Apologies there will be one or two typos. 🙇‍♂️

Also this probably belongs on another subreddit but since this place lists "advice and vent" in the description and I will speak about SW (eventually) this is enough for me, that being said I'll move if needed.

Now the main topic:

I'm 22, socially anxious and inexperienced, my birthday is coming up in August and I figured I'd try to work on myself a little before I turn 23.

Basically, I got some childhood trauma and have been dealing with issues feeling safe around other human beings.

At my worst it got to the point where I did not set a foot out of my apartment for the whole year of 2015, at that time, basic things like taking the bus, going to school, talking to the postman or even my family felt impossible.

With time I worked a lot on myself, did years of therapy and I got to the point where I've been somewhat living like a functional member of society.

I had multiple jobs through the years, I once in a while make new friends (like once every two years or so 🙃) and I met great people online in the most unlikely of places. (small parentheses but big thanks to ePal.gg and discord for that. I barely visit both of these days but some people there are simply amazing and I made good friends.)

One thing I just can't get right at the moment is my love life I really want to build a family someday, but I think I just don't manage to speak and open up to someone enough for anyone to think I'm even remotely interested.

Looking back the opportunities clearly weren't lacking, there even was two completely different instances where friends just got half naked in my bed and started sleeping in there (one was my sister's friend who was as expected drunk, but I had confirmation later that she acted perfectly knowingly and did have an interest in me and the other was my best friend's sister(no regret there she's off limit)) while I was just doing my best keeping my distance and I got upset at both them for doing so. There also was some less obvious case but I guess that's also part of my problem.

My sister made me realize years later how wrong of me it was to just leave the room without saying a word in both of those situation. But honestly this sounds just like me, acting like I don't care because I'm afraid of the risk.

Anyway all this is the past. Now, I'd like to act and change, that bring me to the main point:

I heard years ago that spending time with a pro in a GFE context was quite effective on people like me, and since I started reading about it I only saw people saying is was.

And that's why I started studying the options, and I started gathering info but to be honest it got me confused more than anything else.

side note: Big thanks to HereFortheFood954 and to "The ValleyScott Blog" for making most of the important information about etiquette easy to find. I wish local law was as clear as them.

From what I see, the options look basically like this:

For the better or the worst, SW is totally legal on the island I live on, and is well known for that part of the industry.

Even if the regulation in place push for SW to work as independent and have refused delivered new brothel licenses for years, most of the industry here stays focused on the existing shops (mostly because they are owned by government official) and are pinned on the tourist's office website.

The easy option is of course these but I don't like the idea of going to one of these "gentleman clubs" because they got involved in some pretty hardcore human trafficking stuff, and that's not something anyone, even more me should tolerate and reward. I'm not even sure the service there would be a fit for my needs anyway, from my understanding they take more of a menu approach and that sounds incompatible somehow. Also I have a hard time picturing me going there and feeling at ease for more reason than I could list.

The rest of the industry is divided in two:

For the most part the market seems to be monopolized by cheap street workers in the tumultuous areas of the island, where people should just avoid setting a foot in, because it's probably a one way ticket.

And the workers advertising on websites with extremely split or bad reviews on internet.

Either the ones touring.

Or the really few living here and doing incall

But those aren't really advertising if we exclude the main ad on local websites making finding them and differentiating them from scams quite the pain because both just post about the same, there's usually just a phone number, no social media, no websites. I'm wondering if the size of the island is the main factor here (there is like 70k people here tho) and the next issue I faced reminded me how small a community that is, especially if you get the ghetto out of that figure...

The nail in the coffin was that one of the few ads that does look legit is the HR at the place I currently work at making her not the smartest choice I think. And most of the remaining ones seem to be immigrates that can't speak a word of any wildly spoken language.

One encouraging through I think I got right:
Right now is the least busy time of the year on the island, most of the foreigners, and most of the wealthy locals (meaning most of the money) are gone because even if the sun is upon us h24 and we get a temperature of 40c, the hurricanes are there too.

Maybe if I just wait for the busy time of the year it'll be easier, I have no guaranty of that but it would make sense. that being said it mean forgetting about the birthday thing.

Another option would be to just board a plane and fly somewhere in the US were it's mostly illegal ironically but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort.

Anyway my conclusion here is that for a place that had SW legal since about when the world started spinning it certainly look like a place were you just put money's in the government's pockets every time you hire someone.

As I said at the start I primarily want advice, because I probably got some of those things all wrong, the only thing I know right now, is that I don't know anything, that's why if you feel like saying something I'll appreciate it no matter the nature of the comment.

That's about it, if anyone make it this far in this post, THANK YOU! ❤️❤️❤️

PS: This account is today old, please overlook that point, I want to keep my main out of trouble just in case reddit policy change like... you know... reddit policy... 🙏