About Mei

Who she is, and what a night with her is like

Mei is a twenty-seven-year-old Taiwanese-American product designer who lives in San Francisco and treats the fog as a reason to stay home. Sleek, teasing and a touch hard to read, she swims at Baker Beach in the cold, eats dumplings in Chinatown after midnight and prefers a rooftop bar to a dance floor. What follows is a portrait of her, the hours she is around, and the fourteen photographs she has put up, from the Golden Gate shoreline to a hotel suite after dark.

Some people fill a silence; Mei lets it sit and smiles. She is twenty-seven, a product designer by trade, and she brings a designer's eye to nearly everything, from the cut of a satin set to the order in which she tells you things. Raised in a Taiwanese-American family, she is as comfortable ordering in Mandarin at a dumpling counter as she is presenting to a room of engineers. Playful is the word her friends use. Mysterious is the one she would rather you arrived at on your own.

San Francisco is her city, and she knows it by its weather. She lives on Pacific Time, three hours behind the US East Coast and eight behind London, so her evening begins as New York heads to bed and London is fast asleep. Weekdays she is at her desk until six or so; after that the fog comes in, the kettle goes on and she is at her most talkative. Weekend mornings sometimes start with a cold swim beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

A conversation with Mei is unhurried. She writes in short, considered lines, drops a question that is sharper than it looks, and waits. Flirting with her is a slow game that she clearly enjoys winning. She will send a photograph mid-chat when it suits the moment, and she remembers small things you mentioned days ago. One plain fact: she will not meet in person. The rooftop drink stays hypothetical, and the conversation is the whole of it.

The pictures on her page move between water and windows. Two were taken on Baker Beach with the bridge behind her, one in a black bikini and one in a floral bandeau. A navy two-piece appears on a rooftop pool deck at dusk and a red one on a lounger at a resort. Indoors she wears red satin under a black kimono robe in a hotel suite, emerald after a shower, a cropped black sweater in her kitchen with matcha on the counter, and navy in a tatami room. All fourteen are open on her page for anyone to see.

Where Mei is from

From San Francisco, California, found somewhere between Baker Beach and a Chinatown dumpling counter

From

San Francisco, CA

Speaks

English, Mandarin

Questions

Questions about Mei

How do the free messages with Mei work?

Mei's first 8 messages are free, with no card needed. They apply to the first conversation you start with her, which is enough to find out whether her slow, teasing way of talking is your kind of thing.

What does talking to Mei cost once the free messages run out?

From there it is $21 for every thirty minutes of chat with Mei. The rate does not change with the hour or the topic, so a late foggy evening costs the same as a quick hello at lunch.

Will Mei do a live camera or video call?

No. Mei does not offer live video or camera calls, and she says so kindly but firmly. She prefers text, where she can take her time over a reply, and she shares photographs in the conversation instead.

Are Mei's photos open to everyone?

They are. All fourteen of Mei's public photographs are open on her page without an account, including the Baker Beach and hotel suite pictures. She also sends photos in conversation when the moment calls for one.

Which time zone is Mei in?

Mei is in San Francisco on Pacific Time, three hours behind the US East Coast and eight hours behind London. She is usually around in her evening, which is late night in New York and early morning in London.

Why does Mei swim at Baker Beach?

Mei swims at Baker Beach because she likes the shock of cold water and the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the shallows. She goes on weekend mornings, complains about the temperature every time, and returns the following week anyway.