My sad story:
I was caught "hobbying" about 5 and a half years ago. It ended in divorce. It was pretty brutal at the time, but I'm fine now.
Long and short.. It can happen. I was wounded, quit hobbying, moved to Florida. Hated it. Moved back and felt it was time for me to move on with my life. That was 4 years ago.
I was a very active hobbier in Dallas. I have about 75 reviews under a couple of handles (I can explain). But since logging back on, I've changed handles again, but the "companions" consider me a newbie with no reviews.
It's been about impossible to convince anyone I want to see that, I'm coming out of retirement. They all want references and my references are all gone.
I could pay for premium membership, take screen shots of my reviews, but I count every nickle and it's tough enough to scrape together enough to hobby.
Does anyone have any other suggestions or should I just "get the message" and hang it up for good?