You know what I find really peculiar?
There are a few people out there who seem to base everything they do on what I do and what I say. I’ll photograph an obscure designer and they contact the designer to shoot their clothes. I’ll set up a location studio at a trannie club and, even though they’ve never shot trannies before, they will call up the promoter and beg to shoot there. I’ll express a concern about a feminist issue and all of a sudden they’ll give it lip service. I’ll come up with a concept for a shoot or a site or an article and they are all up in it, making pale imitations, when they are probably quite capable of doing something cool on their own, if they’d just be original for a moment. They will only date people I say are hot. They will move to whatever city I tell them is cool. They will try to work for or with anyone I’ve worked for or with, even those where I maybe didn’t make the best choice of a gig.
Obviously, it is not like there is one person who has done all these things, but the personality type is recurring in my life.
I would think that, if these types find me sooooooooooo inspiring that they’d base their freaking lives or careers or art on me, then at least they would sorta want to be nice to me. Yet, once these sorts of people get the slightest toe in the door, they start trying to push me out. It makes me feel bad to have people trying to push me out of areas I enjoy, just because my being there inspired them to want to be there. Plus, if they are just going to follow me to the next thing I do, I have to stand my ground and endure the irritation, as I know the biters will only follow, if I go elsewhere.
How am I supposed to respond to it when people do this sort of thing? I mean, I always wanted to be influential, but it hadn’t occurred to me that being influential would mean that I’d have to deal with people who were simultaneously on my jock and angry at me for being what they want to be or something. If that is even it. I don’t even get what they are angry about.
Can anyone explain this irritating behavior to me?