QotD: Model Behavior

Would you ever want to be a model? Why or why not?

I actually was a model.  Once.  It was such a terrible experience that I refused to ever do it again.

I got to dress in all sorts of really neat clothes, but it was the kind of show where the models walked among the seated guests.  And these guests simply reached out and touched the clothes, ostensibly for rubbing thumb and forefinger against the fabric to check out texture and content, but it was creepy as all hell.  I had no warning at all, they never spoke, there were just hands clutching at me and I was uncharmingly yanked back as if I were a trophy fish, free to move again only when they released me.  My instructions were to mingle throughout the room and keep my eyes lifted above everyone, and for God's sake, smile.  It was like walking through a forest in the dark, where the trees reached out and grabbed you.  I absolutely hated it -- their quietly snide comments, their scrutiny, their unseen hands snatching at me, my skinny teenage body being used as a way to sell someone's overly priced merchandise. 

I finished the gig and I got the hell out of there and I never looked back.  I was asked to model many more times after that (well before I got chubby from having my kids, during my long-gone days as a flat-chested rake).  I don't care what the money was like or how many cool clothes I could have collected, or any of the other things that could be said about the career - I only remember their eyes, and how I felt so lonely avoiding the look in them, and how disgustingly edible their scrutiny made me feel.

I'm much, much happier being a programming, classical-music composing, plump nerd than I ever could have been as a clothes pimp.  I am 100% sure on that one.  I'm glad there are people out there who do it, and I'd be happier still to know that they enjoy it, but that is one career that is just not for me.