Puzzled by the Male of the Species

I had an interesting experience being self employed the last three days. For the last year, I had been working steady, sometimes had way too much work, and I only remembered 2 times where I had absolutely nothing to do for a day. This time, it had slowed down to a trickle, say a billable hour or two a day, for 2 weeks. Most of my work is residential, so I thought the economy had caught up with me. People whose house is being foreclosed don't want to remodel or add-on. I totally get it. So I decided I needed to do some marketing and find some new architect or structural engineer clients who actually might need help drafting. I did everything - post my resume on craigslist, scour the ads, call my Italian uncle, etc. Then I had the creative idea to ask my existing clients to refer me on - pass my resume forward to their friends & collegues who might need help. I really thought this might work! But in a weird way it has backfired.

Here is the letter.

To my dear Clients,

I've been brainstorming about how I, as a small business owner, will survive the current downturn in the economy. I know one thing for sure: I'd like to stay self-employed, rather than become employed - I am sure you can understand. I want to stay proactive about it, so I need to expand my client base. If it is true that "it is who you know, not what you know", you can help me.

If you have any friends and collegues who may need some help drafting their
architectural, structural or landscape projects, now or in the future, please refer me to them. I also survey and draw as-built plans for homeowners directly, should you know of anyone who may be interested in that kind of service. I am attaching my resume as a pdf for you. Please feel free to pass it forward.

Thank you for all your help.

Sincerely.

The first client I told about this said, panicky, "but I'm afraid I'm going to loose you! What if somebody gets really busy before I do?"
Second client called me the same night. "I have more work than I can handle, but I can't filter it down to where you can take over! Can you think about that?" The next day, I was out in the morning, but he had a project for me, immediate needs of course. It's a pretty tiny job.
I had a 9 page fax with sketches to draft from another client for a small project. I had an email from yet another client with another small project.

What freaks me out is that suddenly everyone is superconcerned, but that nobody said, "OK, I'll pass it on to soandso and s/he might call you". These projects are small, and they won't keep me busy for long. I am grateful for the work in the interim. But it is as though their fatherly protective instinct kicked in and what they are hearing is that I'm broke, homeless and hungry. So they are being supernice and giving me what they can. The thing is, I don't think my email sounded so desperate. But I feel like I'm getting pitywork. I want my clients to think of me as sought-after and successful, not as scraping the bottom! I thought I was being smart marketing myself in a slowing economy. Tell me, did that letter sound desperate? Would they act differently if I were a male? What can I do to make them respect me more rather than assume that I'm starving?