The Strip Club Dating Survival Guide (2 page)

How do I know this?

I know this because strippers are what I have been doing as a lifestyle for nearly twenty years. Starting during my Army service, and continuing right up until today, I have been dating strippers and working on and off in strip clubs. I even managed to get myself married to a stripper at one point in the course of a relationship so intense and heartfelt that 
I can no longer even remember her damn name
. Take a moment and think that one over real good.

Wait a minute…actually 
I do
 remember her 
stage name
, now that I think of it…funny, that.

Over the years, 
exotic dancers
 became a staple of my dating life, and even the girls who didn’t dance still tended to work in the industry as door girls, cocktail servers and bartenders. I even had a chance with a female club manager at one time, but she was so fucking hot that I didn’t quite get that she was coming on to me until after I had already blown it. After a time, however, I got sick of the bullshit and stress that often comes as a natural consequence of dating girls that are used to getting paid 
every time they get naked
, and opted for a normal girl instead; the bartender working the topless joint the people who employed me had just opened up in North Hollywood.

I should mention at this point, that in my mind, 
normal
 in this context includes any non-stripper female who nonetheless is working at a strip club while everyone else falls into the 
boring
 category. Clearly I am sick, twisted and perhaps overly concerned that my life might be deficient in 
excitement; 
defined as the emotional state in which one is agitated by the immediate presence or threat of pain, suffering, distress or even death. Still, you should know that there is this basic assumption underpinning everything I am going to say in this book; 
dating girls that don’t work in strip clubs is pointless because they are fucking
dull as shit.

Seriously now, when there are single strippers out there available to you in clubs all over the place why in the hell would you purposely pick some insipid chick who thinks that thong underwear are for sluts and 
very
 special occasions, and 
anal
 
is something you do with your boyfriend on his birthday if he’s been an exceptionally good boy this year? Honestly, I’ll take the crazy 
maybe we can have a threesome tonight 
stripper girlfriend with all the baggage, drama and daddy issues over some lame regular girl who stuffs her fat ass into workout clothes every day even though she doesn’t ever work out.

Hopefully you see where I’m coming from on this.

So, we were saying…oh, yeah I was dating a normal girl. I was with her for a few years, and things were ok. And when I say that things were ok, I mean that they were 
just ok
; not only was this girl not a stripper, but she was also that odd kind of girl that works in strip clubs 
and 
hates strippers. Man, what a fucking weirdo she was. But then in the last year of that relationship something else happened, something that would end up saving me from 
boring.

I met another girl.

She wasn’t someone that I was dating or cheating on my girlfriend with. Perhaps saying that I had actually 
met someone
 might be a bit of an exaggeration since actually she was just somebody I kept running into over and over again. I saw her working at the adult conventions, and saw her at a charity golf tournament that the southern California strip joints were putting on, and I was attending. Yes, strip clubs do put on charity events, quite often in fact…so get over it. One time, my 
normal
 girlfriend actually caught me staring at this chick, and socked me upside the head just to 
let me know she meant business
. I didn’t even know the name of this stupid, funny looking stripper, she was just some girl that somehow got my attention no matter how long it had been since I had seen her last.

Then one day, she and her friend came walking into the club I was managing at the time and asked to work. I remember thinking that she was the best dancer I had ever seen, and how every time she took the stage the whole club would 
just stop
 to watch her as she moved across the stage...because,
fuck
...she really was that good. And because I am completely selfish, greedy and grasping in every way, I knew I just had to have that all to myself. As I watched her from across the club, I promised myself that she would be mine…
someday.

I remember that she wanted to go home early, and how disappointed I was that she was 
one of those
 skanky ass 
stripper-rats
 
when she offered me a 
private dance
 in the club office…
if I’d let her go.
 And I remember how my disappointment abruptly faded as she started to dance for me. If you’ve ever seen a girl in a white snow bunny costume and eight inch 
platform stripper heels
 suddenly start 
River-Dancing
 with enthusiasm, skill and complete commitment…well, then I suppose you can probably identify with me on this one.

If you haven’t though…well, shit…seriously, you just don’t know what you’re missing. She even finished my “private dance” with a huge, cheesy smile and a show-stopping: “TA-DA!” Suddenly, inexplicably…
I knew that I loved her...
now completely disarmed, stunned and helpless, I was forced to let her leave early. Yet, as she went, I swore to myself that 
some fucking how
, she would be mine.

It took a little less than six months, and required that I dump my fiancé to get there, but it was well worth it. Now, years later, our son is sitting next to me on the couch, playing 
Angry Birds
 on my phone as I write this. She’s off somewhere being a big-time feature entertainer and magazine model right now, and I’m writing a book. Life is kinda funny like that. My point, however, is this:

You can have the girl you want, if you want her bad enough.

At the very end of this book, I’ll briefly explain something called 
TDS 
to you. Once you’ve read that and had some time to consider it, I’d suggest you come back to this dumb little story about the random girl that river danced her way into my stupid ass heart. Reread this story, and the insight you may gain about how she did it 
can serve you as well.

In addition to my own personal history dating dancers, I’ve spent years working at strip clubs. I’ve hired and fired more dancers than I can count, held their hands during breakdowns over asshole boyfriends, transitioned them from dancer to the employee and back again, written them letters of recommendation for prospective landlords and car dealers, told them to their faces that they were too fat or strung out to work, all while having innumerable heart to heart discussions with them over career, family and relationships.

I also worked for years in adult boutiques specializing in selling costumes, shoes, lingerie and accessories to strippers. I’ve had more girls shamelessly strip naked to try on new thong underwear, thigh high stockings and schoolgirl skirts than I ever could have thought possible back when I was a dork who couldn’t get a date in high school. I have heard more ribald commentary out of the mouths of exotic dancers regarding customers, lovers and other dancers than you would possibly believe.

All the time I have spent in and around strip joints has provided me with a unique perspective on the girls that work in strip clubs, one that I am willing to share, along with all the other information that I have picked up along the way. But how am I any different from the hundreds, perhaps even thousands of current and former strip club employees with similar experiences?

I’m still in love with the strippers.

Almost every person I ever met working in clubs eventually became jaded and bitter about his or her experiences. I would often watch in dismay as friends and co-workers quickly learned all the ways to disrespect or even hate the girls we worked with. Certainly the point of us being there in the first place were these strippers that were subject to such contempt and easy dismissal.

Maybe those people had valid reasons for the way they felt about the girls, or maybe not. I wasn’t them, and it’s hard to say what might be going through the minds of other assholes who aren’t me. As far as I was concerned though, I had fallen in love with the girls the first time I set foot in a club, and there seemed to be no reason to change how I felt, regardless of how much 
stripper drama
, bullshit or stupidity I ended up exposed to every day.

I think that somehow I will always be a customer at heart, always excited to see that next girl on stage, always looking forward to the fresh, new faces, and always checking my pockets to see if I have enough cash to tip or get a dance. I presume that, if you are reading this, you are somehow, on some level, not much different, and that’s alright. Loving the thrill of pursuing, dating and living with exotic dancers can be a rewarding thing, so long as you don’t value life stability or your own 
self-esteem
 overly much.

Strip club dating is fundamentally a 
game
 
and, just like any other, it is a game with rules. If you don’t know the rules, obviously you can’t play. We all had to stop and read the inside of the Monopoly box the first time. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have known the difference between Community Chest and Chance cards, Free Parking, and Boardwalk. While I am certainly not claiming to be offering some definitive version of
The Strip Club Rules
, what I am giving you here might be considered a useful, abbreviated set.

My intention is not to advance some kind of step-by-step, foolproof formula for banging chicks you meet in a strip club, and surely not one that would require you to spend four hours per night, six days a week out in the field, practicing your craft. I certainly hope you didn’t pick this book up thinking that’s what you were getting. What I am going to do is give you some inside information about how these clubs work, what the girls are actually like, and how you can best position yourself to maximize your enjoyment on any particular club visit,
and
make yourself attractive to the girls who, as I said before, are the primary point of any strip club adventure.

The Strip Club Dating Survival Guide
 is broken up into four parts, each with a focus on one general area of information related to clubs, dancers, etiquette, money, common sense advice, strategies for success, and your own behavior.It’s set up this way specifically so that you can skip around to whatever is of most interest to you, read straight through or even return to certain parts later if you like.

In 
Part One
, we will go on a tour of the average strip joint in America, learning a few of the basic concepts that are fundamental to the daily operation of 
gentlemen's clubs 
wherever you go. This is a general overview that gives you a look inside the average club; just be aware that the clubs you visit in reality may be significantly different from what we talk about here depending on what type of club it is, where it is located, and what the current legal climate is like.

We’ll also spend some time in that section discussing the mechanics of stripper life, where and how the money flows, and the ways that club life can impact the daily routine, worldview and expectations of an exotic dancer. You’ll have the opportunity to take a second look at life from the viewpoint of the dancer you’re trying to date, perhaps finding there some insight on how to break through the typical dancer defenses and make the connection you’re looking for.

In 
Part Two
, we’ll take a look at some of the fundamental skills you need to have down in terms of your appearance, presentation, hygiene, social skills and common courtesy. We will also take a moment to review some of things you just totally should not do when you’re at a strip club, along with an introduction to the general rules that should govern any night out at a strip club…but which you probably 
never even knew existed
.

Part Three
 of the 
Guide 
will go over in some detail how to go about spending money in the club. In certain ways, nothing will be more necessary than this because every girl you’ll meet is going to be in it for the money. Knowing the correct way to handle money issues while you’re at the club is the key to success when your objective is hunting the most dangerous predator species known to men:

Aurum Fossura Tripudio Meretricis.

In American English this creature is known as a 
stripper
, in case you don’t speak Latin. But seriously though, who 
doesn’t
 speak Greek and Latin, am I right? I mean, what kind of society would we have if our educational system didn’t teach the two languages our entire civilization was based on? That would be ridiculous…
wouldn’t it?

Why are you looking at me like that?

By the way, since we’re on the subject (which we’re really not, after all) why do we call it 
English?
 Have you ever heard 
actual
 English? Like…heard real English-speaking people actually speak it? The genuine English language spoken out loud sounds like somebody from Boston caught a really nasty head cold, and now has decided to somehow rectify the situation by stuffing their mouth full of marbles while fucking a sheep. I know why and how we originally spoke English, but don’t we really speak 
American 
now?