Are We Human, Or Are We "Dancers"?

To: BlogNgr, Dr.Cocktagon, Ty

From: The FoOl

2:19 a.m.

Strippers are fucked man.
I swear to god there isn't one sane, normal stripper in the entire world. They are all chicks with father issues who like the attention and money their jobs afford them and have a crazy self-delusion regarding the normalcy of their lifestyle.

I've never once met a stripper whose self perception was anywhere near accurate.

Anyway, so we go to the bar across the street cause my buddy is meeting up with this stripper he picked up the other week and her friend is supposed to be there so I figure fuck it why not. I break the ice with this chick, ignore the fact her mannerisms and conversation are strange (everything out of her mouth was contradictory or self-referential) and try to work her cause

1) she's stinking hot

and

2) what else am i gonna do at a bar on a Wednesday? Karaoke Chumbawumba? Deez nuts nigga, deez nuts.

So whatever, I don't have a bad time and things are pleasant enough but I can tell it's going nowhere. Then out of nowhere she goes "wanna see what kinda guy I'm into", so I'm like sure - hoping she'll whip out a picture of someone who looks vaguely like me maybe. What do you think she does next?
Breaks out her fucking iPhone and shows me a picture of some severely middle aged Italian guy with scruffy facial hair and a ergonomically designed pot belly. So I'm like "who is that, your dad?", knowing full well that since she's a stripper that's nearly impossible since they never really have dads, hence the stripping, and she goes "no its my boyfriend. He's 42."

Long pause while I try to not offend her with a look that says "you're a fucking sociopath, know that?".

She then tells me how he's so loving and says the main selling point for her was the fact he's the kind of guy who'd "take off my boots for me when I get home. He always buys me flowers". Suuuurrrre. It's not cause you subconciously want to fuck your absentee father, thus proving you were always worthy of the affection he never bestowed upon you - it's cause the middle aged couch sitter buys you flowers that he's such a great guy.

I've been out with strippers more than a handful of times now. Every single time the night consists of them trying to establish their lives as normal before pissing all over everything they say and exposing themselves for the headcases they truly are. They're not bad people and they're not even bad people to be around but there's something to be said about people that can be so disconnected from the reality of what their lives are. They're so oblivious to the true motivators that drive their compulsions. They're some strange blend of insecure and oblvious of self, if you can grasp what I mean when I say that. It's the classic disjunction between "what is told" and "what is shown".

Like, I had no chance with this chick tonight. Not cause of anything to do with me, but because she's not looking for a good looking or successful or intelligent guy. The criteria by which she evaluates a man's desirability all relate back to her unique psychosis - lack of a loving father, no strong male figure in her life....whatever...and since I can't help her quell any of those gaping holes in her psyche cause I don't fit the requisite archetype to be a 'father figure' or whatever I have no value to her. It's fucked. Strippers are such uniquely damaged people man. The young one's especially. The older ones, if you ever get to talk to them (I have) are also usually people with damaged lives but they've adjusted well enough to survive into middle age and maybe have made peace with themselves. The look in their eyes when they drop the act and talk for real is akin to what I imagine a Gulf War veteran's would be like post-service.

And the fucking horror stories! Tonight the two strippers we were hanging with told us about a girl they knew personally who was killed by her pimp when she failed to make quota. He tied her to a bed and put a curling iron into her vagina and left her in a hotel room to die. I wouldn't have believed it - would have figured it for an urban legend, but you could tell from the way they told the story the shit was legit. Names, times, hotel names etc.

I never know how to talk to these girls man. I always get caught in the middle cause I'm a genuinely good person so instead of just telling them what they want to hear to get pussy I call bullshit on their lifestyle a lot of the time cause for whatever reason it bothers me to see people on such a negative trajectory. Of course this does me no favours and I go home alone. Whatever. At least I keep it real.

I fast typed this entire thing just now to vent before I pass out into sleep. Just wanted to bleed this shit out of my head before I go to bed so I don't dream of dead strippers and 20 year old girls getting fucked by 42 year old perverts who look like their father.

In closing: Strippers - who the fuck knows man. I will say this though: when I reach my 40's I'll always make it a point to hit on the 20 year old girls, cause you never know which ones are just fucked up enough to say yes.

Nite.