I've had a run of not awesome clients lately. Between not working, and just having clients that I didn't particularly like, it's really made me rethink my job. I've not been happy with my job in the past few months. I think part of it is that I have too much time on my hands, and part of it is that I just haven't felt like I've been able to connect with any clients recently.
I was thinking about it the other day; you have co-workers that you see every day, and you have a relationship with these people, and there's a respect there. It's a professional respect, generally, but that's a normal working relationship that people have. I don't have that. I don't have any professional connections with anyone. So to be able to connect with the odd client really makes my job rewarding.
I see these men for an hour, or less, sometimes more. They're always well mannered. They're always polite, and as charming as they can be... which can leave something to be desired. Lately, though, I've been feeling that all I am to them is just a whore. It's been getting harder and harder to fool myself that these men give a fuck about me in any way. So my job has been wearing on me.
When I started, I told myself that when my job had a negative effect on my emotional being, it was time to get out. I knew I had to be really careful about it, because usually the crazy person is the last to know they're crazy. Girls in the sex business get bitter. I see it in my co-workers. Many of the girls who work our phones are former escorts. Ange, my friend who brought me in to the agency HATES men. I don't want to be like that. I love men. Most of my friends are guys, I respect the gender. Men supplement for so many things that women lack. They sure as hell keep me balanced. I don't want to become a man hater, and I haven't yet. But I do feel that it's weighing heavy on me.
Tonight I saw a new client. He phoned me around 1 AM. He's 31, and he kind of looked like a really young Tom Cruise, with a bit of a rounder face. He was a divorcee. I get a fresh divorcee about once a month. They are my favorite kind of client. They respect me as a person. Fresh Divorcees, I find, are just so fucking , they just want someone to treat them with respect.
I don't usually get the back story of their divorce. I don't ask. I'm their as their escape, their break from reality. I'm not going to get into "tell me how you feel" aspect. That's not my role. If they want to talk about it, they're welcome to, but I don't ask.
This guy was like a good 'ol Southern boy. He had Souther manners, he called me Miss (thank gawd he didn't call me ma'am!). He even pulled my hair free after helping me with my coat when I was leaving (men remember that, that's impressive). If I didn't feel so guilty about it, I'd call him a red neck! He loved his hunting... and his dog. His dog was the most beautiful dog. Morgan. But Morgan was suffering from, and I'm not kidding, male pattern baldness. He had bald knees and a bald belly. He told me there was nothing medically wrong with Morgan, he was just getting old, and like a lot of old guys, the hair line was starting to recede.
We sat and talked for about 45 minutes about dogs, and hunting, and the rural areas around where we live. He reminded me a lot of my step brother, whom I have no qualms calling a red neck, so I knew how to talk to him about these kind of things. I'm a big talker, but I like it when people contribute to conversations too. But this guy wouldn't say two words when he only needed one. His response to the majority of things we talked about was "Yup." or "Nope" or "Mmm-Hmm"." I talked to him like a dude. I didn't get into the emotional shit, we just talked about how much divorce fucking sucks. I didn't struggle to keep the conversation going though. I liked him. He was easy to talk to.
A lot of times when I'm with a client, I'm very careful to keep my energy guarded, and I'm careful not to let them feed off my energy, but with him our energy just flowed. It flowed freely through each other. I often judge clients by their hugs. Their willingness and openness. Sometimes I find hugging more intimate than sex. It's heart to heart, it's not moving on to the next thing. It's like the silence in conversations. Some people try to fill it with more conversation, and some people are ok just relaxing in it. The two of us embraced for a long time. It was intimate, and it was nice. I enjoyed it. It was truly what we both needed. I needed to be reminded why I like my job.
I still see Frank all the time, and I don't have the same level of compassion that I used to with him. He's always bugging me about giving him a deal with his "frequent flyer miles", or letting him take naked photos of me, which I won't. I still respect the guy, and I like the guy as much as ever, but the compassion I had for him when I wrote that original blog post is gone. Now we just have our relationship, and it is what it is, and it's fine. I'm not uncomfortable or anything, but it's not what it used to be.
I actually had my first mentally challenged client a couple days ago. And, like I say about the compassion that I used to feel, where I felt that everyone deserves some sort of love, and it's my job to provide that. That is what I do for a living. That compassion is gone. Obviously this guy is not going to get a date. He works in the mail room of some downtown company, and granted, you may not notice him as being different if you passed him on the street, but I'll bet he doesn't have a drivers license. Frankly, I did not want to be there. I did not want to be doing this. It was just gross and I didn't like it. I'm sorry. I felt really guilty, because I didn't have the compassion that I started out with.
To feel the hurt that was coming off tonights client, and to be able to help him, and make him feel better, means the world to me. It's why I do my job. In situations like that when my clients hurtin like that, I absolutely let them get away with way more than what they paid for. I stayed for around two hours, may have gave him GFE. And I didn't mind.
He fell in love with me. Which is nice. Like I say, I haven't had a client 'fall in love' with me in while. He wanted to date me. That gets tricky. I have to reject him with out saying no. I told him (what I tell everyone) "You'd want me to quit my job." He admitted that it was true, but didn't see anything wrong with that. In all honesty, I would never date a red neck, no matter how charming they are. I don't want dead animals in my garage.
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