Falling for a Provider
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Re: Re: It's the slow ambiguous evolution
Two misunderstandings I should correct:
First of all, what I mean by "fade away" is not for the money to be unobtrusive and out-of-mind. Rather I mean that the commercial aspect fades; you move along the evolution from commercial to ambiguous to non-commercial more quickly. Crudely put, the less you worry about whether or not you are paying for companionship, the faster the effective rate per hour will drop...until it eventually hits zero for all practical purposes. By "zero for all practical purposes" I mean that either the sex and the payments both actually stop OR you are paying her so much less than her normal rate for sex that it would be perverse to imagine that you are also paying her anything for the lots of non-sexual time you spend together.
Second, I do not seek to make friends with providers; it has only happened a handful of times in close to 3 decades of steady hobbying. I also do not seek to make friends with business associates, neighbors, clients, people I meet via the net or indeed any other category of people. It just happens with some of the people I encounter and spend time with...in an unplanned and largely unstructured way. Of course, I like having friends; having friends at work or as clients makes my professional life more interesting and pleasant. Having providers as friends makes hobbying more interesting and intense. Etc.
The only reason that this is such a hot topic for discussion on hobby related net forums is that there are so many hobbyists (including the majority of UGers, apparently) who see it as somehow vastly different from making friends in other parts of one's life. Some go so far as to consider it impossible. I think this says a lot about their deep attitudes toward and level of comfort with the hobby and providers. It just doesn't seem that different to me in most regards. The biggest novel issue is that the friendship can start out as purely commercial paid companionship and then must change into something else, often gradually and ambiguously.
-Ww
Two misunderstandings I should correct:
First of all, what I mean by "fade away" is not for the money to be unobtrusive and out-of-mind. Rather I mean that the commercial aspect fades; you move along the evolution from commercial to ambiguous to non-commercial more quickly. Crudely put, the less you worry about whether or not you are paying for companionship, the faster the effective rate per hour will drop...until it eventually hits zero for all practical purposes. By "zero for all practical purposes" I mean that either the sex and the payments both actually stop OR you are paying her so much less than her normal rate for sex that it would be perverse to imagine that you are also paying her anything for the lots of non-sexual time you spend together.
Second, I do not seek to make friends with providers; it has only happened a handful of times in close to 3 decades of steady hobbying. I also do not seek to make friends with business associates, neighbors, clients, people I meet via the net or indeed any other category of people. It just happens with some of the people I encounter and spend time with...in an unplanned and largely unstructured way. Of course, I like having friends; having friends at work or as clients makes my professional life more interesting and pleasant. Having providers as friends makes hobbying more interesting and intense. Etc.
The only reason that this is such a hot topic for discussion on hobby related net forums is that there are so many hobbyists (including the majority of UGers, apparently) who see it as somehow vastly different from making friends in other parts of one's life. Some go so far as to consider it impossible. I think this says a lot about their deep attitudes toward and level of comfort with the hobby and providers. It just doesn't seem that different to me in most regards. The biggest novel issue is that the friendship can start out as purely commercial paid companionship and then must change into something else, often gradually and ambiguously.
-Ww
The only reason that this is such a hot topic for discussion on hobby related net forums is that there are so many hobbyists (including the majority of UGers, apparently) who see it as somehow vastly different from making friends in other parts of one's life. Some go so far as to consider it impossible.
But certainly no one in this discussion, right?
(And of course it's vastly different. There's no other type of person in my life who I pay for fake companionship)
((If you could imagine some other career that involved the exchange of companionship (but not sex) for money, I'd say it you'd be in the exact same boat))
But certainly no one in this discussion, right?
(And of course it's vastly different. There's no other type of person in my life who I pay for fake companionship)
((If you could imagine some other career that involved the exchange of companionship (but not sex) for money, I'd say it you'd be in the exact same boat))
While I do see some sense in these sharply drawn line-in-the-sand type distinctions, I do not think that they actually have much to do with the reality of friendships with providers due to the ambuity and evolution I described in a long winded and probably little read post this morning. So, I reproduce the main point here:
However, in my experience with providers as friends, that is just not what happens. You start out paying for both sex and social time explicitly, perhaps very explicitly, but gradually over time the whole situation becomes much more ambiguous and ill defined. How much you offer to pay, how much she seems to expect, to what extent you are getting a more and more discounted rate vs just being off the clock altogether, whether it is because she enjoys your company or just greatly values your business or a combination of the two, whether it makes a difference if you or she suggests an activity or meeting, and on and on...all get extremely mixed up and unclear. It can feel like walking on egg shells and is often quite confusing. Most likely it looks equally messy from her perspective. You have to feel your way together, either by discussing the issues directly or by sort of indirect signaling (which women generally like better I think), through a long evolution from impersonal commercial companionship (with sex) to a real friendship (with or without sex). It can be a trip and a half, if you have the stomach for it.
This is all quite different from other friendships...which never have a commercial phase from which they must somehow emerge, and conventional ideas about friendship are of limited relevance.
-Ww
However, in my experience with providers as friends, that is just not what happens. You start out paying for both sex and social time explicitly, perhaps very explicitly, but gradually over time the whole situation becomes much more ambiguous and ill defined. How much you offer to pay, how much she seems to expect, to what extent you are getting a more and more discounted rate vs just being off the clock altogether, whether it is because she enjoys your company or just greatly values your business or a combination of the two, whether it makes a difference if you or she suggests an activity or meeting, and on and on...all get extremely mixed up and unclear. It can feel like walking on egg shells and is often quite confusing. Most likely it looks equally messy from her perspective. You have to feel your way together, either by discussing the issues directly or by sort of indirect signaling (which women generally like better I think), through a long evolution from impersonal commercial companionship (with sex) to a real friendship (with or without sex). It can be a trip and a half, if you have the stomach for it.
This is all quite different from other friendships...which never have a commercial phase from which they must somehow emerge, and conventional ideas about friendship are of limited relevance.
-Ww
That is a significant difference, as I have mentioned a few times already; it is exactly what makes such friendships more confusing and ambiguous (and interesting, in some senses). But I guess I just see it as less fundamental than you and others. To me, it is a different starting point, but it does not "change everything"; many other aspects of the friendship, including most importantly the feelings involved for both parties and the end point it evolves toward, can be just like those of friendships initiated in more conventional ways.
-Ww
-Ww
That is a significant difference, as I have mentioned a few times already; it is exactly what makes such friendships more confusing and ambiguous (and interesting, in some senses).
If you throw in
and much more likely to not be friendships at all, but rather someone's mistaken delusion,
I think there'd be less disagreement than n pages of verbose thread would indicate.
(And, for the record, I read your post this morning. There's a reply I want to make, but I can't quite verbalize it yet. It has something to do with the imposition of a discrete structure on a continuous set)
((Oh shit, I think I just figured out a really great metaphor))
If you throw in
and much more likely to not be friendships at all, but rather someone's mistaken delusion,
I think there'd be less disagreement than n pages of verbose thread would indicate.
(And, for the record, I read your post this morning. There's a reply I want to make, but I can't quite verbalize it yet. It has something to do with the imposition of a discrete structure on a continuous set)
((Oh shit, I think I just figured out a really great metaphor))
Ambiguity illustrated
I wanted to post a link to a thread I read a few years ago on some other hobby PMB, but I have had no luck finding it. Too far back and my memory too inexact (not even sure where I saw it...probably TBD or ***), so here is my best recollection of it:
He was the regular customer of a provider who came to his place (I guess he was single) for a session fairly frequently. She was not a clockwatcher and frequently hung around afterwards to chat for a while, maybe have a drink or whatever. Then, one day she shows up for a scheduled afternoon tryst, collects her envelope and does the deed(s) as usual. But the chat afterwards goes on and on with both of them deeply engaged in the whatever they were discussing (which I don't remember if he even said). It gets to be dinner time, and he offers to make her something to eat. She accepts. More talk over dinner. Somehow a movie they both loved comes up. He has it on video and suggests watching it after dinner. She agrees. By the time dinner and the movie are done it is well into the evening. She starts to get her things together to leave but, in his perception at least, seems to be sort of stalling and lingering awkwardly. In retrospect it seems (to me) that she may have been hoping to be invited to stay longer, maybe for a second bedroom round or maybe for the night or who knows..., but he thinks she might be waiting for some extra payment for all of the extra hours of her time. He, in his account of it, tentatively offers her some extra $$$ for staying so long. Land mine! She is totally insulted and tells him off big time, says he is an insensitive asshole who thinks that a woman who sells her body has no self-respect and stuff like that, storms out and refuses to see him again. He is, naturally, very surprised and upset and so posts to ask for people's comments. A long thread insues that you can easily imagine about who was right wrong, misled and so forth. I don't recall, and probably never heard, whether the two of them ever sorted it out and "made up".
This story well illustrates what I mean by the ambiguity that can develop in these sorts of developing provider-client relationships. Nothing so dramatic has ever happened to me, but I have definitely more than once found myself in somewhat similar situations, wondering whether she might be offended by an offer of additional payment or feel "taken" if none were forthcoming. Both can be very real possibilities.
-Ww
I wanted to post a link to a thread I read a few years ago on some other hobby PMB, but I have had no luck finding it. Too far back and my memory too inexact (not even sure where I saw it...probably TBD or ***), so here is my best recollection of it:
He was the regular customer of a provider who came to his place (I guess he was single) for a session fairly frequently. She was not a clockwatcher and frequently hung around afterwards to chat for a while, maybe have a drink or whatever. Then, one day she shows up for a scheduled afternoon tryst, collects her envelope and does the deed(s) as usual. But the chat afterwards goes on and on with both of them deeply engaged in the whatever they were discussing (which I don't remember if he even said). It gets to be dinner time, and he offers to make her something to eat. She accepts. More talk over dinner. Somehow a movie they both loved comes up. He has it on video and suggests watching it after dinner. She agrees. By the time dinner and the movie are done it is well into the evening. She starts to get her things together to leave but, in his perception at least, seems to be sort of stalling and lingering awkwardly. In retrospect it seems (to me) that she may have been hoping to be invited to stay longer, maybe for a second bedroom round or maybe for the night or who knows..., but he thinks she might be waiting for some extra payment for all of the extra hours of her time. He, in his account of it, tentatively offers her some extra $$$ for staying so long. Land mine! She is totally insulted and tells him off big time, says he is an insensitive asshole who thinks that a woman who sells her body has no self-respect and stuff like that, storms out and refuses to see him again. He is, naturally, very surprised and upset and so posts to ask for people's comments. A long thread insues that you can easily imagine about who was right wrong, misled and so forth. I don't recall, and probably never heard, whether the two of them ever sorted it out and "made up".
This story well illustrates what I mean by the ambiguity that can develop in these sorts of developing provider-client relationships. Nothing so dramatic has ever happened to me, but I have definitely more than once found myself in somewhat similar situations, wondering whether she might be offended by an offer of additional payment or feel "taken" if none were forthcoming. Both can be very real possibilities.
-Ww
Whether you mean what I'm about to allude to or not.........
I think this might be over reaching, because there are all sorts of "fake companionship": in lots of people's lives. Didn't you mention earlier that you go out with clients and not say thing to them in "social contexts" that you would say to "real" friends? I think there is tons of simialr stuff going on in all sorts of "commercial" relationsships, and people "pay" in all sorts of ways. There are all sorts of "favors", just not sexual one's, that get done for "business friends", who may not be "real" friends, but are pseudo friends of a business nature.
And while you may not be seeing it as "paying for fake companionship", there are probably guys out there doing things for you, because you had a few drinks with them, or whatever, and you are getting "paid" for it. Or, even though you didn't make this direct connection, there's some guy who go some ( even if minor) preferential treatment by you because he became "more of a person" because you guys had drinks a few times, as oposed to being some disembodied voice at the other end of the phone.
I think this might be over reaching, because there are all sorts of "fake companionship": in lots of people's lives. Didn't you mention earlier that you go out with clients and not say thing to them in "social contexts" that you would say to "real" friends? I think there is tons of simialr stuff going on in all sorts of "commercial" relationsships, and people "pay" in all sorts of ways. There are all sorts of "favors", just not sexual one's, that get done for "business friends", who may not be "real" friends, but are pseudo friends of a business nature.
And while you may not be seeing it as "paying for fake companionship", there are probably guys out there doing things for you, because you had a few drinks with them, or whatever, and you are getting "paid" for it. Or, even though you didn't make this direct connection, there's some guy who go some ( even if minor) preferential treatment by you because he became "more of a person" because you guys had drinks a few times, as oposed to being some disembodied voice at the other end of the phone.
Just so; the standard euphemism for it is "networking", and it is considered normal and good business practise in many contexts. The connection between the fake companionship and monetary profit is more indirect but no less cynical and insincere in many cases.
On a more general note, I think the difficulty many people have in seeing the similarity between relationships and behaviors in the hobby world versus more common and public areas of life is, in itself, very interesting and suggestive.
-Ww
On a more general note, I think the difficulty many people have in seeing the similarity between relationships and behaviors in the hobby world versus more common and public areas of life is, in itself, very interesting and suggestive.
-Ww
I wasn't directing this to OH or anyone in particular. But there are definitely people here who seem to be (either consciously or subconscioulsy) looking for that friendship (for whatever reason).
I am absolutely amazed and shocked at the number of people that are so involved in all the back channel drama and all the particulars of whores working practices and lives.
I mean I really don't understand this. In over 3 decades of hobbying (OK haven't been really active the last 2+ years), I've paid women to suck my dick and leave. Even if I found them or some aspect of conversation interesting, I couldn't conceive of wanting to move beyond the purely commercial relationship.
I am absolutely amazed and shocked at the number of people that are so involved in all the back channel drama and all the particulars of whores working practices and lives.
I mean I really don't understand this. In over 3 decades of hobbying (OK haven't been really active the last 2+ years), I've paid women to suck my dick and leave. Even if I found them or some aspect of conversation interesting, I couldn't conceive of wanting to move beyond the purely commercial relationship.
If my dentist is really funny and great, I'm still only paying him to fix my teeth.
But with commercial sex, there are people who pay simply for companionship.
And of course, inasmuch as you're actually paying your dentist to be a nice guy to you, and inasmuch as he knows this, I suppose friendship with your dentist would also be filled with the same sort of concerns as friendships with a prostitute.
But with commercial sex, there are people who pay simply for companionship.
And of course, inasmuch as you're actually paying your dentist to be a nice guy to you, and inasmuch as he knows this, I suppose friendship with your dentist would also be filled with the same sort of concerns as friendships with a prostitute.
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