Sunday, December 19, 2010

The Hardest Thing, and It All Works Out

The hardest thing for me emotionally as a phone sex worker is the lack of ability to get in touch as I wish.

It happens to everyone who has a public side, not just phone sex workers. People leave messages for Dan Savage (sex advice columnist extraordinaire) without callback information, and he has to fill in the blanks without the ability to ask clarifying questions. People misunderstand or spread misinformation about public figures, and their best recourse is a press release, but there is rebound from self-serving publicity like that.

For phone sex workers, if I want to communicate further after a call is done, I can send an email via the system, but many callers never check their system email, so there's a high probability a message will be lost. I just have to wait for them to call back, feeling unresolved and not in control. <PoutVoice><MadFase>I don't wike it</MadFase></PoutVoice>

I understand that in everyone's life, others can choose to ignore you, but until I started this job, I felt like I could usually figure out how to contact someone if I really need to do so.

I've had several regular callers cancel their accounts, and I have no way of knowing why. Are they in financial trouble? Are they afraid they were becoming addicted? Were they discovered by an unsympathetic spouse? Were they getting crap from another provider for leaving me feedback? Will they be back?

The other day, someone anonymously commented on my blog. I saw it and responded as the last thing I did before bed. I would have loved to have been able to open a dialogue, ask a few questions, get some clarification, but all I knew was "anonymous", so I did the best I could. But I had some of that fretful lack of closure worry-sleep where my dreams got wacky and everything felt unresolved. (This isn't to make the anonymous poster feel bad - I opened my blog for anonymous comments. You did what you were allowed and encouraged to do, and your comment was good for me overall.)

I'm learning that things often work out just fine. I mean, in the big picture, everything always works out fine, but even situation-by-situation, things often resolve satisfactorily, even without me having any control over my ability to contact people.

The anonymous commenter left a delightful response the next morning that made me feel 100% relieved. All better! And a couple of canceled-account ex-callers created new accounts and called again - I didn't press for explanation, so I'll never know what happened, but I was happy to enjoy their return. Actually, now that I think about it, both of them are callers who love to hear me come, so I've enjoyed their return on several levels! /HappyShiver

It all works out. It always works out. Things end up fine.

But, if you're gonna disappear on me, drop me a line to say bye first?

2 comments:

  1. God, grant me the serenity
    To accept the things I cannot change;
    Courage to change the things I can;
    And wisdom to know the difference.

    I'm not remotely religious but this prayer is a kind of mantra for me... I say it over and over when I remember and am feeling stressful. You are right Galiana things do work out most of the time... even when they don't they still do. To worry about what we could have done, said, not gotten to say, is fruitless... next time you don't get closure with someone, or you can't speak to them and you want to, well say it out loud to yourself, have a conversation, or type it out, and don't send it. I realize you might be talking to yourself but perhaps they will hear you and then you can let it go... and just smile, you learned how to accept one more thing you could not change.

    and isn't it more fun to have a mystery Anonymous person that responds to your blog? you can make up anything about them you want :)

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  2. Anon, it is a wonderful prayer indeed, one I remind myself of often. This comment made me curious about the origins and happy to discover the rest of the prayer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer -- neat!

    I have done "type it out and send it to myself" therapy as well, which has been very helpful sometimes.

    I do like making up things about anonymous people - while people watching, while browsing data about blog readers, and while reading comments... Alllllllmost always... :)

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