Social Commodification

One of the most profound realizations of my adult life is that social intercourse is really a form of commerce. This is an idea that still doesn't sit very well with me, and for the past four or five years I've been carefully positioning myself as an observer in most social situations, trying to disprove it. I can't.

Several years ago I was seeing a therapist. When this realization first dawned on me, I brought up the topic with him. He told me that there was nothing wrong with social commodification. People use people for their own ends and discard them when they are through, and there is nothing wrong with that. Coincidentally, soon after that I stopped seeing that therapist.

I come from a small town where there just aren't that many people to discard. The social code is very simple: you either like someone or you don't. The people you like are your friends, the people you don't like are not. Growing up, that's how I saw social interaction. Certainly in my small high school there was no real jockeying for social position. You were born to your status and that was that. In my case, I was born to the social misfits who were talented, funny, and smart. We weren't necessarily pretty, but in high school you're supposed to be a work in progress. We understood that and accepted it.

When I moved to Chicago to become an actor, at first I accepted social commerce as an trait exclusive to the theatre world. It wasn't long before I realized that the friends I made in the theatre weren't true, long-lasting friendships. They were friends who were interested in professional networking. I quickly could gauge my success in a show, not by the reviews of the critics, but by the number of people who wanted to stay in touch with me after the run of the play. It was a painful lesson to learn, but I got it. When that aspect of being in the theatre became too much for me, I gave it all up.

Tragically, however, I discovered that is the way most of society works. Your mere existence isn't enough to warrant decent treatment. You have to represent some form of opportunity or possess some exploitable potential. Everyday, in every way, is a trip to the local marketplace to pedal your wares: your self. Any professional skill, any wisdom or talent are really secondary to your exploitable potential. In personal situations, that translates not only into sexual desirablitity; but the potential for leading to sexual activity, either with you or someone you're likely to know. As I've gotten older, this has expanded to the possibility of partnership and economic stability. In the chorus I watch this jockeying all the time. This dance can be quite entertaining to watch.

Ultimately, this realization took a very, very heavy toll on me and I fell into a deep, dark depression. In that depression, I railed against a world that wasn't the way I thought it should be. Slowly I accepted the ugly fact of social commodification and realized that if I was going to survive, I was going to have to get into the game. If I wanted to have a life, I was going to have develop my product and marketing strategy, personal goals, and a detailed shopping list of the type of people who would help me achieve those goals.

Even just typing that makes me kind of nauseus, but it's a metaphor that has some power for me, even though I still can't fully subscribe to it. In professional settings I try to be upfront with people: "This is the reason we're friends. This is not personal." I'm not explicit, but I do keep up a distance that allows me to keep perspective. Don't get me wrong: I still have friends who are my friends simply because I like them, they are cool people who travel in wildly different circles than I, but keeping up with them is difficult. And I think that maybe because they see the world in the terms I've just described, they don't always understand my perspective.

Sometimes I deeply miss the days when someone was my friend just because he made me laugh.