People love me: That doesn't help me get what I want

I was riding in a pick up truck in Nevada county in northern California, up in the mountains on a gravel road. This was when I was living up in Grass Valley, trimming cannabis. I was with this guy Davy. Marine veteran who had been disillusioned by the military and now spent his time breeding pedigree dogs and selling them on the internet. We were going to see his friend Cooper who lived in a junkyard.

Fun fact about me: I love junkyards. Everything in a junkyard had a previous life, a journey. You know, like a rusted toucan bird outside someone’s grandma’s house that got dumped in an estate sale when grandma had a heart attack after her granddaughter came out to her. We’ll talk about junk in another story. This junkyard was more like heavy machinery junk.

So Davy and I pulled up to Cooper’s junkyard in the mountains. I guess Davy was in the habit of walking right in to Cooper’s front door, because he did, and I guess Cooper wasn’t in the habit of having sex on the couch with random women because he was, and everybody was in shock in that living room.

Cooper just kept on going, and told us to wait outside, unless we wanted to hold the camera. It was only then that I noticed a tripod in the corner of the room. Now, being a videographer, the first thing I noticed was that the whole scene was underlit, or the subjects were backlit by the window, and so the action was underexposed, which is what I said. The woman Cooper was with, Mel, asked if it would be better to go outside.

Let me stop here to say the reason we were going out to Cooper’s in the first place was to pick up kennels that Cooper had welded together with parts from his junkyard. He had known we were coming, yet he still chose to do this now.

So we went outside and I found a place for them in the shade by the house where the light was diffuse and shot the thing. I guess it was for Mel’s OnlyFans. I had just been enjoying myself, when they looked at the footage and asked me my price. Price? Hadn’t even crossed my mind. Davy stepped in and said he’d take a discount on his kennels. Mel was very shrewd, because she seemed to know the earning potential of that video, and also the value of Cooper’s labor going in to making those kennels, and immediately calculated a discount that everyone reflecting on it agreed with.

So it was done, and everybody got a deal out of it except me. I got to do an activity that I really enjoy, and also I got this story. That to me is worth more than gold. But I didn’t get money, or sex, or discounted merchandise, or anything that makes the world of humans go round. And let me tell you something about me. People who know me would agree that I have some monk-like tendencies. But I’m still a degenerate. You could still dangle sex in front of me and get me to do a stupid jester’s dance. But I digress.

Mel and Cooper loved me. They said any time I wanted to come by and help them out I was welcome. They were so happy with me, and I felt like I made friends, till in the truck afterward, Davy said Cooper was always trying to get free shit, where did I think all that junk came from. Davy is a good man but he’s cynical. But he wasn’t wrong. Cooper did try to have me come back out, which I didn’t do because it was always to help him. Mel was the same. Trying to get me to help organize her content library. Even Davy said he “owed me one” after getting him cheap kennels but that “one he owed me” never came up again.

Then one night Davy and Cooper got drunk together and decided it would be a good idea to do a MFM scene, and of course I could shoot it because I was so great, and could I bring my nice camera. Meanwhile I could barely make rent because I was slow as hell at trimming cannabis and a room in Grass Valley was going for $800 a month since all the rich techies had left the Bay since the start of the pandemic.

By this time I didn’t really want to do it because “what was in it for me” but I also hated the fact that I was thinking “what’s in it for me” because that’s what we’re always doing as humans and look where that’s got us. So I went, with my nice camera. And I guess it started off ok, until in the middle they decided they wanted to shoot it gonzo style and so started passing my camera back and forth, after thumbs had been in buttholes and whatnot and I was just sitting there getting really pissed off.

Like, wanting to just grab my camera and leave, but having the courteousness to wait it out. It was only when the battery died and they asked for a new one that I said I was leaving, quite irately, and then and only then did they offer me $200 to stay. I said “fuck your money” so they offered me more, with more “fuck yous” from me, until they got to $500. That would save me a lot of labor in trimming cannabis. So I said “Ok” but they were not touching my camera anymore. And I was more angry because they had had a $500 budget for videography the whole time apparently.

It blew my mind that it took me becoming an asshole to get money and respect from these people. Being kind and generous just got me taken advantage of. And I really try not to internalize that message. But that kind of experience works on you. And frankly, the pressure to yield is great and unrelenting.

As I write this, I realize it’s a matter of setting boundaries. But that’s just to stop people from overstepping my boundaries, to say nothing of me really asking for what I want, which involves me brushing up against others’ boundaries. What it means is that those who are bold enough or unscrupulous enough will always get what they want more because they will go and get it and best case scenario they will respect a boundary when it is asserted.

People, my real friends, love me personally. But I am impoverished. My authenticity is not supported by this world designed by thieves and mercenaries. It’s really starting to feel like it’s time to steal that money back. Or do you have a better idea?