Professions: Writing Shareware, Drawback Of

For the last five months now, I've been working on shareware full-time. Considering the amount of money that's coming in, I'm going to be working on it for some time to come.

The reason I bring it up is that whenever I tell people what I do, I immediately get this look. The sort of look I'd get if I said I wiped windshields on the corner for a living. Or made beadwork. Or was an actor, not working at the moment, but I have an audition next week. Or coded in COBOL. Or was unemployed.

This puts me in the position where I have to either say I make a lot of money at it, which is extremely gauche, at best, or let it slide and have the person think I'm some no-life generation X slacker flakeazoid, and I don't want that.

I'm not sure I should even care. I mean, how important is it that people respect what you do for a living?

Also, I should mention that nobody will ever want to fuck you because you write shareware.