Is there a recommended way to send communications to a sitter to setup a meet-n-greet?

Is there a recommended way to send communications to a sitter to setup a meet-n-greet?

The only solution I've been able to come up with is start a booking request for a fictitious date and then explain in contact sitter message that's what you did in order to establish communications and discuss an initial meet & greet.

The problem with that is then then & I get messages from http://rover.com asking why the booking never ended up happening. I wouldn't want initiated but not committed bookings to some how trigger a http://rover.com algorithm that impacted where that sitter shows up in a zip code search result or elsewhere in the service.