My opinion on vouching

Vouching on Couchsurfing has been a heated discussion in some threads. Different people seem to have different views on vouching, some are very strict, some give them away like Christmas presents and many are somewhat inbetween.If somebody asks me what the right approach to vouching would be, I will answer that this will fully depends on the voucher's intuition, observation of subtle actions and personal view.
I will then present to them my own view on vouching which they may agree or disagree with.

How do I proceed with vouching and what criteria do I need?

A person can be great and trustworthy, although the hosting/surfing/personal connection may not click perfectly.  With the help of  CS-friends, I have set up the wording for my vouching criteria:

A. I must trust them with my family, friends, property and belonging.
B. They must trust me with their family, friends, property and belonging
C. They must be respectful to other people, their property and belongings
D. They say what they mean and mean what they say


How much time do I need to vouch for people?

Generally, I will leave out every person that I just meet after a quick drink or a large gathering on neutral grounds. Probably I will size up this person whether I decide to continue our relationship or not.My idea of time is quality and not quantity. And this actually means that I definitely need some time but don't quantify in minutes and months. We could as well have spent a shorter quality time to be able to tell how far I can trust a person.

Normally I don't host people for 1 night only and therefore I always get a fair time to build up a relationship. However, I don't vouch for everybody that I hosted or surfed with. I'm very, very selective with hosts or guests and in the past I have vouched for many of my surfing/hosting experiences.

I vouch for the people from MY subjective viewpoint and give NO guarantee that this person would become best friends with everybody. The heterogenuous, multicultural and -lingual nature of CouchSurfing would not make this possible. The people I vouch for are all CS-dedicated in many ways and GENERALLY trustworthy. At the end of the year I'll give my friends list a review but don't limit it to a certain number or time. This is rather about quality time spent and the nature of the relationship.

Exceptions:
People that I work with closely may become the exception because in the past I have vouched for people I met in ambassador meetings which lasted a couple of days/hours. Sometimes we have organised meetings together so the bonding was stronger. Even when I receive very good vibes from them I will still give it time to find out more details.

Do I vouch back for the vouch I get?
I have done this in the past because I considered all my vouchers trustworthy. However, there is no guarantee that I will always do this in the future.

I have never considered vouching as an "You love me, thanks. I love you too" approach. Neither do I make a drama out of it or because I'm an ambassador. Long time marriages or friendships can turn into a malicious war, people change or show their other dark side they may not be aware of before. So I think even the most sensible people make mistakes so once in a while. Removing the friend links on CouchSurfing is the only way to remove the vouch. At least the next vouch will not add up to the vouch list.

I hope this helps people to vouch with conscience. One more tip: Click on the profile who has vouched for your future host/guest and find more information.

My last minute guest in Sydney

My only real last minute guest in Sydney was Pierre Jean. He wrote to me about 5 hours prior to his arrival at my place. I told him not to write copy paste messages and to mention my name instead of just a hey. He apologised for this and we started a 2-hour mail contact which I found quite extensive. I could find out quite much about him and his journey. He has been travelling to the icy northern part of Mongolia, not a particular tourist destination, as well as the dangerous Timor Leste and East Indonesia. All his stories about a ferry ride in East Indonesia as well as staying with locals in Timor Leste caught my attention immediately. His photo at the ice lake in North Mongolia ignited my interest. He was French and could not speak English very well, so this was a great chance for me to practice my French language. I told him that CS or Couchsurfing was not a dating site and he assured me that we were both not cannibals......good analogy.

I was still at work as my mobile phone rang. An Australian girl was on the phone and told me that my "friend" was lost. Jeezz....I gave him such a detailed description and I could already expect some sort of messy catastrophic person. Anyway, as I arrived home he was already waiting for me. He looked like a playboy on his profile photo but in real life he looked older than his 26 years. A bit bald already, thin, shy and rather underfed. He looked sick and tired thus I did believe him as he told me that he didn't sleep for 2 days. Sydney was cold at that time of the year and he used to sleep outside in the park because he was too proud to ask for a couch..

Pierre Jean was extremely well-mannered and polite as a guest. He was clearly a disorganised person in his head; creative but catastrophic. He never liked working on a career, left school at the age of 16 despite his parents being well-off and educated. Pierre Jean was good at language learning and picked up foreign languages in quite a short time. He told me that he could play the piano, offered to play for me many times although he never studied it and never learnt to read music. His stories about Mongolia, Indonesia and Timor Leste were amazing, he met a lot of local people on ferries and surfed their couches without this website. I could believe this because that was what I did before the era of Couchsurfing and the internet. He was considerate and talked to his mother on the phone a few times a day. I also experienced that his mother sent him money immediately on the same day. The first thing what he did was to invite me to an Italian restaurant, something that I wouldn't expect from a backpacker.

The ways on Couchsurfing are strange because Pierre Jean was not the type of person I would make friends with under normal circumstances. It was the French language, his travels and his considerate attitude towards hosts where I was sure that he learnt it during his travels in poor countries. Pierre Jean stayed with me for 6 days and I helped him to contact Alain Funel in New Caledonia. He wanted to look for a job to finance his travels and did not have a working visa for Australia. As a Frenchman he could reside in New Caledonia without any problem and take up a job. Alain's wife was given training because her school background was not strong enough to find any type of work. I suggested these opportunities for Pierre Jean and he seemed interested.

Pierrre Jean was an immature and quite crazy guy but I thought he could succeed in New Caledonia. He has always been very polite, clean and tidy in my house, helped washing the dishes and showed a lot of respect. I just had some difficulties to get him under the shower and brush his teeth. He was grateful, gave me a wonderful reference in French and went off to New Caledonia......

My first experiences with Couchsurfing

Not that I haven't met all kinds of people from all types of cultures and language backgrounds. On the contrary, due to my parents ethnic background and their job, I was travelling the world since my first baby crawl. I have hosted and been hosted far before hospitality exchange websites could facilitate our travels. Actually I was rather looking to meet new people and learn new perspectives of life as I joined. It is just the idea of freeloaders who have no interest in me as a person and just use me as a free hostel which gives me the goose bumps. Imagine a stranger who just wants to crash for one night and then leave early in the morning, barely gets the opportunity to get to know you, only leaves a dirty lump of washing and possibly cockroach eggs.

AS I visited a host from Hospitality Club with my daughter, I was surprised how open-minded and hospitable they were. I felt I needed some encounters with these extraordinary folks and attended my first Couchsurfing and Hospitality Club in Mainz. The people were so interesting and multicultural that I didn't hesitate to attend a private party at Dennis Emrich's place, the Mainz ambassador at that time. At this party I was also given my first meeting reference to make my journey around the world easier.

I was browsing around the website, read forums and profiles just for fun. Some people, especially those from foreign countries, really ignited my interest and I began my first correspondence with them. The day came as I surfed my first couch in Neuss near Düsseldorf. A colleague of mine offered me to watch a Lasik operation in Neuss on a very sort term and I needed a place to stay. It has never occured to me for one moment to write a copy pasted bulk mail. Of course it was a natural attitude that I personalise my request and write with strong attention-catching words. At least I did have some experience in writing marketing letters and let my skills flow into my first couch request.

Very quickly I received 3 offers from interesting people although I did not have a single reference. So I already thought that a request written from our hearts even if it is just one paragraph will beat any type of reference or profile. That was the very beginning of Couchsurfing because nowadays quantity seems to make up for quality among the new members.I decided for one girl close to the hospital and of course my good manners encouraged me to thank the other hosts for their offers.

This girl, my first host Michaela from Neuss and now city ambassador, exceeded all my expectations. The Couchsurfing wiki article suggested that to avoid disappointment one should barely expect more than a couch to crash on. I bought her a set of facetowels which is something I do often when visiting a person I don't really know. She was rather surprised and we cooked together like friends who know each other since years. Apart from this I had many interesting conversations about so many subjects and went out for salsa dancing. This was my last surfing experience in Germany before I left the country and heading for my second residence in Sydney, Australia.