The girlfriend experience, described honestly
One commissionThe phrase is not ours and we would not have chosen it, but guests use it and it means something specific, so here is what it means here. It describes a manner, not a menu. An evening booked this way is warm, unhurried and unperformed: she is affectionate in the ordinary way people are, she asks about your week and listens to the answer, and nothing about the hours feels like an appointment being kept.
It buys no more than any other commission on this list. The ladder does not move for it, the hours are the same hours, and the fee is for her time and her company exactly as it is everywhere else on this site. What changes is the temperature of the evening, which is why the names below matter more here than the length does. Chelsea and Marylebone see a good deal of it, and every woman on The Hang will take it.
Suited to girlfriend experience
What unperformed means
It means she does not arrive with a character to play. There is no pet name, no rehearsed enthusiasm and no attempt to behave like someone you have known for years, because that is the version of this that guests find embarrassing within ten minutes. What you get instead is a woman who is genuinely easy company, who will disagree with you about a film, and who is comfortable being quiet for a stretch without filling it.
The shape most guests choose
Two hours at £500 is the shortest that works, because the first hour of any evening is an introduction whatever the manner of it. Three at £700 is better and four at £900 is the one people come back for: a drink, dinner somewhere unremarkable, and the walk back. The ordinary evening is the point. Guests who ask for this commission are almost never asking for an event.
It works at your hotel and it works at a table. It works particularly well at the end of a week that has gone badly, which is when it is most often booked.
What it does not mean
It does not mean a relationship, a pretence of one, or anything continuing after the hours end. Nobody here will call you afterwards unbidden, and nobody will ask you to. It also does not mean anything explicit: the fee is for time and companionship, the same three words as every other page, and the warmth of the manner does not alter what is being arranged. Guests who read the phrase as a code are politely told they have misread it.
Four who do this particularly well
Molly is warm before she is anything else and sharper than the first impression suggests. Bianka remembers how you take coffee and the name of the colleague you were dreading. Rosa arrives talking, and twenty minutes later the conversation is somewhere neither of you planned. Tiffany notices whether a guest has eaten, which she says is the answer the whole evening runs on. All four sit in the fuller half of the cabinet under curvaceous except one, and their own pages say which.
How such an evening tends to run
She arrives at seven, and the first half hour is the ordinary business of two people getting used to each other: a drink, the weather, whatever went wrong at work. By eight you are at a table somewhere unshowy, and by nine the conversation has stopped needing to be steered by either of you. The last hour is the one guests describe afterwards, usually a walk back or a glass somewhere quiet, and she ends it at the time agreed with a proper goodbye rather than a look towards the door.
The districts that suit it
Marylebone is the natural home of this commission: the high street is lit and easy on foot, the rooms are small, and nobody dresses up for any of it. Chelsea suits an afternoon that turns into an early dinner, since the district is at its best in daylight. Kensington works well for guests staying in a flat rather than a hotel, who are more numerous than you might expect. All three are quieter than Mayfair, which here is the point.
Asking for it
Write the length, the date and where you are staying, and say in one line what the evening is for. Tamsin reads that line carefully and suggests accordingly, which is the whole reason for writing it. Nothing is held until a name, a time and a figure have all been agreed, and the fee is handed to her as she comes in. Booking sets out the four steps.
Two pages of the long view on this commission
Questions on this commission
Yes, and a good many guests do. Say so when you write and Tamsin checks her diary before suggesting anybody else. A second evening is usually easier than the first, which is most of the argument for it.
Whatever is true. A long week and a wish to talk about anything else is more use to Tamsin than a description of the woman you have pictured, and it leads to a better suggestion.
Write to Tamsin. Three hours' notice or more and nothing is owed. Inside the final two hours before she is due, half the agreed figure stands.