friends rediscovered part I
Last week I reconnected with my best friend from high school. I haven’t spoken to her in eight or nine years. There was no animosity, just a simple drifting.
Most of that was my fault. We started drifting when I started cocktailing at a strip club. Although we laughed about the job, I let myself lose contact with her when I started stripping (I had a feeling she wouldn’t like it) And she moved back to East Texas around that time, which made it easier to lose contact.
As is the way of small towns, she recently ran into my mother and my mother told her about my nonprofit. She contacted me through there. I was surprised, thrilled and scared when I received her message.
In all the time I’ve been involved with the adult industry, I’ve never had a problem telling people the truth about what I do. I’ve always known immediately whether or not someone could be trusted enough (or needed) my full disclosure. I’ve never had a moment of waffle.
Until now.
I realized how much I wanted her good opinion, the renewed friendship and how much I feared the rejection and hurt. My usual reaction to negative events is to get mad. This would just plain hurt.
She’s a good, small-town girl. She married her high school sweetheart a month after we graduated and is still with him (they have two kids). I never thought he was good enough for her, but she’s happy, so I have to give him some credit. I’m very sure he’s the only man she’s slept with. Although she knew full well I never intended to be monogamously married, how would she feel about my life choices? What would she think about something as mundane as my living with a man who isn’t married to me, much less my stripping and escort work?
We did some basic catching up through e-mail. I avoided most of her “what have you been doing?” questions. I told her that I needed to call her and talk. She knows me well and she’s not stupid – I’m sure she had a few ideas of what I might tell her.
So I called her; my voice dry, squeaky, breathy and fast (yeah, I’m a candidate for Toastmasters). We chatted and I danced around her questions. Finally, I “came out.”
It didn’t take her a moment to process the information and laugh. “Oh, that’s fine!”
She knows me, who I am, and it doesn’t matter what I did and didn’t do with my life. (Since she is well-connected in a small town, I explained that I needed this kept quiet.)
I’ve never considered her a narrow-minded person, because we would not have grown close if she was, but I didn’t know if her years of marriage and mothering would’ve changed any of her opinions. Turns out, she’s become a lot more aware. She hasn’t changed her basic beliefs but she’s also become more tolerant.
Besides, I wasn’t suggesting a gathering of sex workers at her house. I was simply telling her the truth about myself.
I’d realized, once again, that telling her the truth would be a lot simpler than trying to fudge my work history for my 20s. Being upfront would explain a lot about my opinions, my travel experiences, how I met my lovers, and other things.
Telling the truth is hard, but once it’s done, everything else is easy.
Telling her was harder than telling my mother.
I wrestled about telling her for a few days. I’ve never agonized like this before (on this subject). It gave me a lot of empathy for other escorts who suffer the same “tell/don’t tell” dilemmas. At the same time, it also proved (once again) that if you can’t trust your friends and family to accept you for who you are, then you need a whole new set of friends/family.
I mean, this is a small-town, church-going, East Texas girl. If she doesn’t have a problem with my life, then who would? The experience has been really freeing.
And touching. It was so very good to hear her acceptance. I’m still her BFF.
And now we can move onto other things. After all, we both have other interests and questions to ask. Life doesn’t center around my pussy and what’s happened with it.
PS: I’m fully aware that at some point, my honesty-policy will bite me in the ass. For the record, it’s saved my butt more times than not, which is why I prefer to handle things in this manner.
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6 Responses to “friends rediscovered part I”
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Personal Update (7/2/08)
Book #2 is on its way. Slowly. But getting there.
I'm finally ready to rejoin life. Slowly, too.
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Geeky
I've discovered the pleasure of working with Brian Gardner's WP themes. His free stuff is nearly flawless and his more expensive stuff is mind-blowing. Although his work is easy to use right out of the box, there's infinite fun to be had by customizing (i.e., destroying) it. As you can see here.
You know, inspired by this post I am going to come out to my best friend.
After all, she already knows I always fantasized about being a dancer; tend to have non-commited relationships with rich, older men and spent a weekend in the US with one of them; she picked me up from a hospital after an abortion (those damn condoms, apparently are far less effective against pregnancy than STDs…); and I talked to her about the idea of modern courtesan to boot.
Just how bad couuld it possibly be?
Thais,
I hope it goes well for you! If she’s your best friend, I doubt she’s dumb and has probably put two and two together already. Being completely honest will probably be very freeing for both of you.
And if she spurns your friendship on the basis of what you do, then she wasn’t much of a friend to begin with. It’s not like you’re killing babies or something.
XX
That is so great. I can think of quite a few friends who I would love to meet up with…if I could only figure out where they are:-(
I wonder how much secrecy is required simply for the sake of not getting arrested. What about the escort who lives and works in the small town? Isn’t she bound in some way to conceal her profession in order to protect herself, her children and her clients? Where is the line between legal and illegal, and what if one cannot afford the stigma of an arrest even if the charges are eventually dropped?
Eliza,
This is one of those things where everyone has to make their own choices. Small towns can be surprisingly accepting of their local eccentrics, and horrible to those they don’t “like.” It depends more on the quality of your character than what you do.
Believe me, in a small town everyone knows what you do. It’s impossible to hide anything. If an escort lives and works in a small town, no matter what she does, people will know. Arrest might not be anything other than a confirmation of rumor, or it could shatter her life. It really depends on how the individual handles their life.
I’m not so naive to think that there aren’t a few sex workers in the area where I grew up. That I don’t hear of their arrests means either they’re accepted as part of the community or the police don’t care.
XX
no one ca say if this is truth or not, anyway this was a good topic, i will make sure i bookmark your site