Conversation

· Jan 2, 2021

I totally want to sign up for all of yalls patreon/substack/bandcamp &c — but I just want a world where everybody doesn’t have to have a hustle

113

Apr 4

i mean look to be clear i’m not going to tell yall how i make money but it’s not pretty — my life is riven with internal contradictions — if you’ve got a grift that works i respect that, it’s all any of us can ask in this vale of tears

Apr 4

my point is do we really have to hurl ourselves headfirst into relations of mutual exploitation?

rosalind 𓅮

I find it working the opposite way, starting professional and then become Friends capital F if we click, and money becomes more and more optional along the way. Because there needs to be love, & sometimes by mutual choice there can gladly be money…

hmm so it sounds like contrary to many in these replies, the professional frame is not *necessary* for you, or only is necessary absent friendship?

rosalind 𓅮

I think so if i understand you. Its a useful protective wall. (I dont mean professional like weird cold inhuman language.) Like a tyre mechanic, i find one i like, pay them whatever, become friends over time maybe, maybe get mates rates/free. But there has to be an actual service

rosalind 𓅮

And if i am a tyre mechanic, i dont charge my friends to just share our feelings/thoughts about tyres. There has to be something i can offer that they cant do for themselves. Which is not to imply any kind of hierarchy At all.

yeah i guess to me it appears that — changing shoes on your horse let’s say — is a service with clear boundaries, that is normally performed in return for money but can just as well be done on a favor-for-favor basis …

… while it appears that the vogue for “life-coaching” is taking a poorly-defined, vaguely-bounded aspect of basic human social bonding and redefining it as a professional service

and where does this trend end? in a few years will it be normal to charge for eye contact? will my mutuals be claiming to me that the frame of professionalism, the exchange of money, allows for deeper, longer eye contact than they can otherwise offer?

QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

@QiaochuYuan

Replying to

and

4:08 PM · Apr 5, 2022Twitter Web App

people already charge for cuddling which might offend your sensibilities but like... it gives people access to cuddling which might not otherwise have it, i knew someone who was a professional cuddler and really enjoyed it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Likes

QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

Replying to

and

you seem to be making two assumptions i don't understand, 1) that people already have access to the stuff you regard as a part of ordinary friendship (many don't), and 2) that professionalizing that stuff will result in less access to that stuff (i think it will result in more)

QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

@QiaochuYuan