I love my friends, but sometimes they can start to bug me – especially when it comes to getting favors just because I’m famous. I mean, I don’t go around asking them for favors. My dental hygienist friend doesn’t give me free cleanings… but as soon she needs something, she’s quick to call me.
I don’t get the double standard. Did they forget that I had to work to get what I have? I mean really work. Were they at the castings where I was criticized publically like I didn’t even matter? Are they constantly judged by other models, potential clients, and the public?
Nope, my friends have regular lives where they don’t have to wake up daily and question something about themselves. They go to work and do good enough and get a check even if they aren’t. Yeah, it’s hardly the same.
Yet, they feel – for some reason – that I am supposed to feel lucky to be where I am. They feel that I didn’t work to get what I have, and since it is luck that got me here, I should pay back into the luck-filled universe and share my perks. In other words, it’s greedy for me not to share because I didn’t deserve it in the first place.
Now don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate what I have, but I damn sure don’t feel lucky. My success didn’t happen by chance, I cried and sacrificed to get here. So I don’t understand why people feel I have this responsibility to share my good fortune with them. Everyone has their chance to be successful, don’t try and eat off of mine!
But I can’t tell my friends no, and I hate it when they put me in that situation in the first place. I mean sometimes it will be little things like, “show up at my party”, and that’s one thing. But sometimes it’s more serious like “promote my jewellery line” or something.
I want to help them out, really I do- because they are my friends- but at the same time I get tired of them asking me for stuff all of the time. Am I so out of line to feel like they are using me?
Oh and then there’s my agent – she absolutely hates when I do stuff to help them. Oh.my.gosh. – when I made the mistake of telling her about the lookbook I shot for a friend, she nearly made me deaf from yelling.
“Do you want to work for free, like some other models? Keep doing these friends of yours favors and you will be. I can promise you that!”
You’d think it wouldn’t be a big deal… I wasn’t booked for that weekend, but she said it hurt my brand, and made it hard for her to book me more work.
I didn’t want to make her job harder, and I want to help my friends out as well… but sometimes I feel like I am stuck in the middle of this crazy out-for-yourself world. FML, seriously.
