jennings rampage

Oh, how will the story of Motivation #23 work out?

Dan Goldstein told me that he admires a man brave enough to admit that he uses a stripper as an ersatz girlfriend. Ersatz my ass, pal!

(First of all, it’s Terminology Time: she’s not a stripper, she’s a go-go dancer. There aren’t any strip clubs in Norfolk, on account of local ordinances, and contributing to my brother’s pet theory that the Navy pays the City of Norfolk to make everything suck. Go-go dancers have to keep their tops on, and there aren’t anything like lap dances at go-go bars, just stage dances. I can’t recommend going out of your way to experience it for yourself, since strip clubs, duh, are better.)

Let’s think on this real hard. I’m a man who enjoys his freedom — I’m on the road every weekend, I work a full day during the week, and when I get off work, I have no one to answer to but myself. I like it that way. I spend all day concerned with what my boss wants or what my teammates want or what the client wants, and I really can’t see myself handing over my few free hours to what my girlfriend wants. Tonight I threw a steak on the Foreman, popped open an ice cold Michelob Ultra, and watched wrestling. After wrestling, I flipped it over to the Superstation for a little Atlanta Braves baseball. My apartment is a disaster, my clothes are everywhere, I own two plates which I wash as needed, I have absolutely nothing hanging on any wall. I don’t own a dresser or a dining room table. My cat doesn’t take kindly to strangers.

Sure, there are advantages to having a girlfriend: something nice to look at and someone to talk to. Well kids, that’s what go-go bars are for. It’s not unusual to go to an establishment like that to talk to the girls — the kind of personality that leads such a career choice is naturally outgoing, and is going to be able to hold up her half of a conversation. Dancers are absolutely fascinating people, and it’s because their performance onstage and off is an intuitive improvisation. They’re in the business of doing what it takes to keep you comfortable and engaged, so the best will mirror their customers and keep pace with whatever they want to talk about. It’s a great ego boost, and a great value for your entertainment dollar.

Dancers are also great because they respond to the absolute worst pickup lines. Check out the one that I used with my current ersatz honeybunch: first I said, “don’t tell the others, but you’re my favorite dancer here.” She laughed and smiled, because that’s not the worst thing she heard that day. Then I said, “and if any of the other dancers say that they’re my favorite, they’re lying.” Bingo! Hilarious! The ice is broken.

I know this is an Onion headline, but from there, I really made a connection with that dancer. I’m great fun to talk to, so she sought me out, and she’s an interesting girl in her own right, so our conversations kept my interest as well. I worked quickly to establish that I’m not a loser: we talked about my job, my degree, my art. She’s very good at what she does: she makes solid eye contact, draws out more details, finds common ground.

That’s the way the arrangement works. She works to create an illusion, I enjoy it and pay her for her time, and then I leave for my apartment and the Game Show Network. So you can imagine my surprise when I said I had to go last night and she told me to wait and pulled out a pen and paper and wrote down her cell phone number and told me to call her some time.

That’s not the way the arrangement works. You can leave it to me to harp on the downside of a beautiful woman giving me her phone number (her CELL PHONE, people), but here I am. The go-go bar atmosphere has a great sense of security and safety; you know exactly what to expect and what not to expect, and everything is set up to fulfill those expectations. That relationship was destroyed with a page torn from a notebook. The stakes are suddenly higher, this is suddenly real, and I suddenly don’t know what to expect.

I’ll give her a call next week and maybe I’ll start to find out.