It's when I'm on his doorstep that I realise responding to an amateur hypnotist's dating profile calling for "open minded" guys might not be the safest idea I've ever acted upon.
Frank* is well-mannered with a friendly, non-threatening presence. He got into hypnotism by reading books, watching videos and then experimenting on his friends, he tells me. Now he helps people with anything from focus on gym, to committing better to study, to getting their rocks off.
If it works, I can't be forced to do anything I'm morally opposed to doing, he reassures me.
The requirements for being put under are abstract: you can't actively fight it but you also can't try too hard to go into the trance.
"It's like falling asleep," Frank says.
"The more you try to fall asleep, the harder it is to fall asleep."
Above all, you have to want it to work.
We go into trances every day, he adds. Sometimes it's watching TV, or cooking, or staring at our computers.
I've probably been in a trance watching cat videos before, I tell myself. This should be easy.
We launch into some exercises to see how I react, each beginning with a focus on breathing.
I'm told to inhale and exhale to certain counts with my eyes closed. This continues for some time until I'm instructed to raise both arms up in front of me, palms towards the ceiling.
Frank tells me to imagine a brick sitting on my left palm. It's heavy and makes it harder to hold my arm straight. He reinforces this idea repeatedly. Then more bricks are added.
In my right hand, I'm to imagine grasping a string which is tied to a helium balloon above. The more I fight that, the bigger the balloon gets.
Eventually, I'm allowed to open my eyes.
"There's a bit of a difference there," Frank says, noting my left arm has somewhat dropped.
We go back to the breathing as I position my hands in a "gun" shape with the index fingers pointed up.
When I open my eyes I'm to focus all my energy on their tips. After that, I'm instructed to separate the fingers and stare at the gap in between.
Frank starts telling me there's a magnet in between, pulling my fingers together. It gets stronger the more I fight it. Then there's an elastic band, too.
Pretty soon I'm staring straight between my fingers and I can feel them move together very slowly. Eventually, they touch.
This could be interpreted as a response but I also remember doing a similar trick in primary school where you circle someone's index fingers with your own and claim magic was pulling them together.
At the beginning of another test, Frank tells me to imagine stress and tension leaving my body every time I exhale.
Then I'm to visualise a place of relaxation - the more I resist it, the deeper I fall into it. I'm on a cloud, he says, which is drifting slowly lower and lower into this state. It feels good.
"Imagine a house," he says.
"You can see all the details of the front door, you start to drift through a hallway. There are different doors and rooms and as you pass each one, you leave stress and tension there and close the door."
Eventually I get to a staircase, he says, and at the bottom there's the most comfortable bed imaginable, with "a thick mattress, fluffy sheets and an open fireplace".
When I make it down the stairs to the bed, my body begins to feel "like a rag doll - floppy, relaxed".
Frank says each inhalation should be like consuming "liquid relaxation" that fills my body from my toes to my neck.
I feel my body becoming more relaxed and I'm trying hard to keep the focus on my breathing, but I'm also aware I'm distracted.
"What should I meal prep for lunch tomorrow?" I think to myself.
"I really need to go grocery shopping."
Frank instructs me to imagine my right hand is glued to the couch. He reinforces the idea with clicks and different synonyms. It's fixed. It's stuck. It's glued.
The guided meditation continues with further planting of this idea.
He gradually asks me to return to the room and open my eyes before asking me how I feel.
"I'm definitely more relaxed," I say.
"Can you try to move your arm?" he replies.
I lift my hand off the couch. It's disappointing.
Frank is determined. He moves to another method.
Eyes closed, I'm to imagine there is a mosquito in the room. I can hear the faint buzz from a distance, he tells me. It starts getting closer. With every click of his fingers, there is another mosquito added.
Frank tells me they start landing on my ear and I feel a need to swat them away.
I try hard to imagine this familiar sensation. I'm fully aware that I could swat at my ear if I needed to, but I simply don't feel anything.
Frank says they then start landing on my feet and the itching is unbearable. Again, I can't really cross into physical reactions. He tells me to open my eyes.
"I think we're going to have to call it," he says.
An hour has passed and usually by now there are signs of a reaction.
"I'm really sorry, I was trying to imagine everything," I tell him.
Through the various guided exercises, I felt myself getting sleepy and relaxed.
However, I was also aware this feeling was punctuated by various thoughts about my upcoming week, stories from the past days, or even noises from outside the apartment.
As much as I tried to shut these out, they disturbed what otherwise felt like a mere guided meditation. I simply could not cross into the next stage of having imaginary barriers or objects force me to physically react.
I start to feel there might be something wrong with my brain. Perhaps it's not as imaginative as I thought it was. Or maybe I can't focus properly?
Frank says there are a lot of different factors and I might respond differently to another session, having now been introduced to it.
Not everyone can be hypnotised. In 2012 academics thought they were on the cusp of identifying a brain signature for of being able to go under.
A study by Stanford University researchers showed the areas of the brain associated with executive control and attention usually have less activity in someone who isn't able to be hypnotised.
Others claim everyone can be hypnotised with the right method for them.
My skepticism remains.
*not his real name