Catch-22.
Tumblr actually didn’t save my post from yesterday, so I’m retyping it because I want to think.The post was about how my life is a great example of a social experiment gone way wrong. A few posts back I complained about the level of discrimination I was experiencing at work, and I wrote again last night because the problem has gotten worse. It’s interesting for many reasons, largely because what I’m going through reveals a lot about how people think. In short, I’m a dancer and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to earn a living doing this because:
1) I work in an environment where the clientèle is primarily poorer, uneducated Mexicans
2) Everyone expects me to be rich and famous in the future, and thus discriminate against helping now
3)People are too convinced that I have more wealth than I do, but the reality of the toll of the discrimination is too obvious, causing monetary problems for me, and social problems for the club.
The best person is making the least money because people are too cheap. I’m constantly getting rejected or have guys attempt to manipulate me into marriage. They’ve basically created an economic dead-end, making it very hard for me to earn a living. I’m constantly being bankrupted on the grounds of being “too hot”.
The problem got worse when the people around me increased the social pressure on the customers to assume that I was rich and famous by behaving towards me like I was, only further encouraging people to think I don’t need their money. I’ve had customers tell me that they felt pressured to treat me in a certain way or to harass me, based on the behavior of my co-workers. To quote one “They’re making it obvious they think you’re the one with money. They’re constantly making you the center of attention, it’s very obvious”.
I didn’t realize that this could put me at risk for other problems other than monetary until I got a new roommate who uses me to advertise herself to her male guests. I don’t even have a lot of money but situations quickly turn ugly when she invites her “homeboys” over and suggestively mentions that her roommate may be well-off, sexually available, and into gangbangs. Oh, and check out that laptop! We live right in the middle of the ghetto, and there’s been a few occasions where I’ve walked directly into the apartment because the door was left unlocked. One of my male friends, who has been to the apartment several times and knows us both, advised me not to sleep there and to take her comments seriously. I told him that I had already told my closer contacts that I was on alert for problems with the roommate and he said that he too was watching the situation closely, but he was worried at the fact that the guy hadn’t responded. We were just sort of looking at the roommate and then at each other like “is he that self-absorbed?”
You’re trying way harder and going home with way less money than everyone else while they sit around waiting on your golden opportunity to appear. The discrimination is too blatant as well, to the point where everyone takes knows that the loss caused by it is actually affecting my livelihood. The longer I keep working there at a loss, the more people assume that I have an outside source of wealth, and when they don’t see that person show up everyone freaks out because they know people are likely to treat me worse as time goes on.
The other problem is the club’s. The worse treatment I receive the more people start to worry about the possibility of law suits and reputation loss. Some people have started to spread rumors that I have a big scary husband who is going to sue the club, which ironically enough, everyone thought that he should. They’ve lost hope in the possibility of me one day coming back and contributing economically to the place because of the treatment I received from the customers. The club loses when no-one can solve the problem of me being the best salesperson and making way less than everyone else without resorting to the excuse of “well she’s going to be rich”. Or admitting that the club’s socioeconomic group has problems. When wealthier clients show up and they see the obvious difference in how one of the best people in the room gets treated they assume negative things about the place, like “is it going out of business?”
When I show up to work like that everyday, it’s a sign that I haven’t been bought out and people start looking at their watches because they want me to stop working there already and it brings up the question again of “does she have a husband or source of outside wealth?”. People gossip just for fun but in the back of their heads I think people have to ask themselves the question of “if her husband is so rich, then what is she doing still working here?” . And now I think they want to negotiate with my non-existent husband to hurry up and get in the picture, and get me to stop working there already. Some of them expressed willingness to talk to him personally about the reality of the situation, and to not just sit on something that’s in high demand, especially when I’m going home that broke. Apparently it’s fucks up the feng-shui of the club too much.
Every day it’s something new, and usually meaningless. I think yesterday the big deal was that I am too biased towards men and masculine forms of communication. Apparently they’re discouraging that in strip clubs nowadays. Then I had a few auditions for the role of “best friend” that my non-existent husband and I could invite over and share our “lifestyle” with. I think in the past two weeks they’ve become more interested in him than me, but other than this stuff my life has been boring as usual.
