Dear Friendly Guys on Social Media™,
We need to talk.
Thank you for telling me that you think I'm a really interesting person. Thank you for complimenting my body. Thank you for finding me so interesting and attractive that you would like to be my friend! Unfortunately, I need to gently decline. No, this is not a comment on your personality, age or appearance; you see, you have been trying to engage with my business account, and taking up my time with no intention of booking with me.
Messaging me repeatedly and then asking if I ever chat with people when there is no money involved is, quite frankly, rude. I do engage with people whom I find click with my personality, and chat without intent to solicit! But the unfortunate catch here is that either they have respectfully engaged my services already, they have provided me with something valuable if booking is not an option, they are peers, or I have approached them first. While I do enjoy unsolicited compliments, not only do they not pay my bills, they also do not fall under any of the above categories. Even if they do, and the person has paid for my services in the past, I may choose not to chat with them as it takes up time that could be given to clients who are currently paying for my services.
I understand that you may be lonely, and that chatting to hot sex workers gives you a thrill, but your insistence that I need to be open to "new friends" takes away my agency to decide who I would choose to be friends with. My personality online is partly me, and partly a carefully curated marketing gimmick; please do not presume to know what kind of person I would click with, especially when your suggestion will always be yourself. Do not presume that you are someone I could number among those of my friends I spend leisure time with. I keep my real life friends away from work, much like I'm sure you have work friends and regular friends - and you engage with those work friends (whom you chose to befriend out of all the people at your work) because you work together, just as you only engage with professional contacts because you are paid to do so. I do also have friends overseas, and I keep in contact with them! You are not currently one of them, and as you have no intention of engaging with me in a paid capacity, I do need to gently let you down.
It is not particularly nice to tell me that I am not "open minded" enough because I don't want to chat with you for free; in fact, it is an attempt at a guilt trip. I am well aware of the fact that you are really only contacting me because you have seen my nudes online, only then read things that I wrote, and found me interesting. I hold no illusions that you would enthusiastically contact me if there were no images, or if I presented as a gender you weren't sexually attracted to - we both know that you would not. Consider that the reasons you have for contacting me in this way are sexual, with a freeloading overtone; following my polite rejection of your attempts with insults is not something a person would do if they were truly interested in my happiness, as a friend would be. You would not engage with random professional contacts on LinkedIn and guilt them into accepting your unasked for friendship, nor would you do similar with your accountant, or gardener, or postman. It is simply not socially acceptable with the majority of casual contacts you come across in their professional settings, and therefore you should assume that it is unacceptable with me.
The same entitled attitude causes men to slip into women's DMs with creepy solicitations. I assure you, it is not any less creepy when the person you are messaging performs sexual services as their job. It is worse, in fact, as the expectation of free engagement makes you a leech - I am sorry to be so blunt. One of my blog posts even talks about not attempting to appeal to our better nature for free or heavily discounted services. Even if you are not expecting me to send you pictures, please consider that if I endlessly chatted with every person who slid into my business account messages, I would never be able to do any work at all, and it would take away from my engagement with paying clients. If you are in need of someone to talk to, consider a counsellor or a forum for finding internet friends - the latter is free. If you are specifically in need of someone attractive to talk to, and you would like to chat about things that are of a sexual nature, you either need to pay, or find someone on a dating app whose interests match your own. Please do remember that they are not your personal fantasy generator though, and you'll need to also consider their likes and dislikes!
The simple fact of the matter is that I am not on social media to make friends with people who are not my peers. If I engage with people, and you wish to point out some kind of "hypocrisy" because I do not wish to engage with you, remember that I have made a choice. It does not fall in your favour, but nevertheless, I am my own person who is allowed to make choices about who I talk to. Please don't expect sex workers to perform free emotional labour for you when you are not paying clients. If we choose to do so because we have come to the independent conclusion that we find you interesting, then you have lucked out! Otherwise, respectfully withdraw when you are given your rejection.
Sincerely,
Every Sex Worker on Social Media