This part of a six essay series written in 2024 and fully updated in July of 2025. The full series is linked at the bottom of each essay.
Humans Are Transactional
My businesses only make money—only help people—because I do two things: I make things people want, and I’ve learned how to ask them to buy those things.
If my business ever stops working, the problem is always in one of those two places.
That’s not just how business works. That’s how relationships work, too. That is how people work.
We live in a world of transactions—not in a capitalist sense, but in the deeply human sense of mutual exchange. Even if you don’t work for a paycheck, your life is still sustained by other people. Government employees get paid by taxpayers. Spiritual teachers are supported by patrons. Even the sugar baby trades value for her Venmo. So does the entrepreneur. So does the stay-at-home parent. We’re all in the marketplace of human exchange.
It’s not just money that flows this way. Love does. Touch. Entertainment. News. Even our addictions—video games, porn, edibles—only exist because someone made them, funded them, distributed them. Everything we consume or crave flows through other people.
So yes, your desire lives inside you. But nothing you want—not even money—can be realized without other people.
And that’s the problem.
Other People Are Not Clean or Easy
You don’t get your erotic life, your dream job, your sense of safety or aliveness, without doing it through people. Messy, imperfect, often annoying people. People with trauma. With baggage. With tendencies you hate because you share them.
It’s seductive to believe you can filter your way to a “non-toxic” partner or perfectly aligned client.
You can’t.
You can avoid believing that by perpetually “working on it” though.
But, if you want real intimacy, real money, real connection, it’s going to come through people just as busted and complicated as you and I actually are.
As we all are.
Love Is a Sales Process
Here’s the kick in the stomach: intimate relationships are a form of selling your personal brand. If you’re bad at them, it’s either because the experience you’re offering doesn’t feel good—or because the way you’re trying to deliver it is off.
People might want to be around you. They might think you’re hot, smart, magnetic. But just like in business, if they’re not “buying”—not committing, not showing up, not moving closer—then something’s getting lost in the offer.
I don’t write online for likes. I don’t create to build a following. I write for my current or my potential clients—the people who will actually come to my door, ready to buy, ready to build something with me.
Do lots of other people enjoy my work? Yes! Does that help me get more overall visibility to new clients? Yes!
But the minute I lose sight of my true audience and start feeding the endless monster of what does well online, I lose everything.
My focus is offering an authentic version of myself and my work to them. To the people I can really help in a functional way.
The same goes for your relationships.
You Might Be Ignoring Your “Customers”
So many of my clients ignore the people standing right in front of them—people who are ready to exchange love, energy, time. They’re so busy chasing the unavailable, the idealized, the emotionally bankrupt, that they dismiss what’s actually available.
They push away the people who are already listening. Who already want them. But because those people feel either “below” or “above” them, they act accordingly. They shrink or dominate. They abandon or cling.
They never collaborate.
They never show a really balanced and realistic version of themselves that isn’t all bad or all good either.
Here’s how it usually shows up:
If you put someone above you, you’ll act insecure. You’ll overexplain, hesitate, flood them with needy energy.
If you put someone below you, you’ll ignore them. You’ll cut them off quickly, talk down to them, treat them like a burden.
Neither one is desire. Neither one builds intimacy.
Stop Building Avatars. Start Building Dynamics.
In the business world, you’re told to imagine your “perfect client.” I once had a coach tell me I had a “broke bitch mindset” because I offered too many affordable programs. She said high-level clients only want luxury. She told me I was repelling my “dream buyer.”
She was wrong.
The second I opened up more accessible offers, like a $47 membership, my 1-1 client roster grew. By giving people low-commitment, easy access to my main coaching curriculum they got to test out if they’d benefit from or needed my 1-1 support. It was like I created a first date.
Turns out, people who value my work don’t all look the same. They’re not sorted by income, gender, education, or personality type. I work with people across the world. Autistic clients. Genius-level thinkers. People navigating illness. Middle-of-the-road suburban parents. Grandparents. Artists. Divorcees. Mentors. Lots of therapists and phycologists too.
If I had tailored my work to some ultra-perfect avatar, I would have missed the best connections of my life. Because many of my clients have become people that I build other cool things with too.
And the same goes for love.
You Don’t Need Perfect People. You Need Better Dynamics.
There aren’t better people.
There are only better dynamics with the same people.
And you have a lot more control than you think in shaping those dynamics. If you constantly sort people into “not my type” or “not on my level,” you’ll end up isolated. If you avoid the people who are reactive, intense, or unfamiliar—you’ll miss their genius. Their depth. Their capacity to love you in ways that might not conform, but they heal.
I love odd people. Neurodivergent people. People with checkered pasts and big comebacks. I was raised by someone with schizophrenia. I’ve been supported by people who’ve lost everything and returned with wisdom I can’t get from any course. These are the people who shape my life.
If I judged them by traditional standards, I would have missed them entirely.
Who Are Your Paying Clients?
Ask yourself: who is actually putting their time, love, and energy into your life?
Who are the people not just praising you, but investing in you?
These are your “customers.” These are the people you're building your most erotic life with.
And yet, we sort them. We reject the ones who don’t match a fantasy and chase the ones who never show up. We act like the people standing in front of us—offering us love—are either not good enough or too good to be true.
That’s not desire. That’s fear.
Your People Are Weird. That’s the Point.
If you’re still reading this, I can almost guarantee that your best connections are a little off-beat. They’re not algorithmic matches. This essay passed the length most people can focus on or understand hundreds of words ago.
They’re soulful fits. Odd alignments. People who wouldn’t make sense on paper, but who make you feel more like yourself.
Have you ever loved someone who didn’t speak like you, think like you, process the world like you—but who showed up anyway? Who tried? Who listened?
You won’t find deeper intimacy than that.
Those are your people.
They’re not easy. They won’t come prepackaged. But they’re real. And they’re here.
The Bottom Line
You’re not stuck because you’re unlovable. You’re stuck because you’re ignoring your paying customers. You’re either selling something that isn’t aligned—or you’re not listening to what your audience actually wants.
It’s the same in business as it is in love.
What version of yourself are you putting out there into the arena of your life? You do need to represent yourself in some type of “brand” but it needs to be one that will speak to the people that will actually work with YOU.
Because nothing—not even desire—is done alone.
Next week, we’ll close this series with a lesson on boundaries. Not the kind you have to guard at the gate—but the kind you wear in your body. Quiet. Clear. Embodied.
The kind that lets you keep your door open, and your dignity intact.
Read the full desire series: Week 1; Week 2; Week 3, Week 4; Week 5; Week 6
I write primarily to support my small business, christinaelaine.com
I am a somatic coach, writer, and curriculum creator writing about the interior life of modern relating, weekly on Medium & Substack. I also host interviews on YouTube.