In our current, highly commercialised society, with its extensive freedom of choice everywhere, we have to realise that all people are customers - in the sense that in virtually every relationship we are part of, we can consider ourselves as items that we have to make available for sale. If I want a job, I must make my skills marketable; if I want to socialise, I must make myself sufficiently interesting to be let in; if I want to enter into a relationship with a significant other, I must sell my qualities to this person.
We are however in the situation that as citizens, we do not have to sell us to the nation; just like parents in typical families have a monopoly on the product they offer to their children - and we can also be so fortunate that through an advantageous sale we have made earlier, we live on old market value - there are both employment relationships and interpersonal relationships that exist on the inertia inherent in such relationships - but basically, one can just as well come to terms with it: I am a commodity, my surroundings are my customers, and my relationships to them depend on my market value in their opinion. And, of course, the other way around - for my outside world are also goods, I am their customer, and my inclination to buy depends on their market value in my eyes.
It may be a bitter pill to swallow - and of course you can try arguments like "but my friends accept me for who I am". Of course. Because you are worth it. Or - which should be a matter of particular reflection - because you are still selling on the basis that at an earlier stage, you had a market value, which was sufficiently high for you to still enjoy its afterglow...
(Translated from Alt er kunder, originally published September 12th, 2013)