Outside in

I guess I could consider myself an “insider” at the club I hang out. Many times I know more about what’s going on at the staff than the dancers, its fairly common when something major happens I’ll a get calls and texts from dancers wondering what’s going on. Most dancers will trust me with their purses (much to my dismay). This is stark contrast to when I first started hanging out at the club and was a complete stranger to everybody. I know I get treated different because I’m more sympathetic to dancer issues than most customer, provided they don’t do anything stupid like make me wait, watch their purse, or call me a creepy club regular. I’m also short and fat, but please don’t call me that while you are trying to sell me something.

The first thing that stuck me when I first started hanging out was that all the girls had stage names. From a purely practical point of view, stage names make perfect sense. It both provides a degree of security from crazy stalker guys, and also helps create the stage presence. But the first time a dancer sits down with you and say “Hi, I’m Epiphany” your immediately gut reaction is no its not. Nobody is named Epiphany and if it was you would shorten it to “Pif” or “Fanny” or “Lisa”. It’s an odd contradiction. Here is a girl who is (however falsely) is acting as if she likes me and wants to get to know me better, yet won’t tell me her real name. She’s trying to establish a bond of trust yet won’t reveal something that seems fundamental like a first name.

Eventually I got past that. I began to judge how good I thought their name was. Most of the time you can pick out the girls who selected their name for a particular reason and the other girls who looked at a list and pick the name that sucked the least. Even with that it’s still an odd conversation. Dancer will talk about normal everyday things then suddenly veer away from a subject like its matter of national security. “I had to go in and the get the alignment fixed on my Hon…. Er, um, car”. I have to admit that i'd never consider revealing what kind of car you drive could be a dangerous. Getting followed home by psycho customer is always a major risk. Not only does that put the dancer at risk, it also endangers their family. I don’t care what you do for a living; nobody should have to worry about the security or stability of their family life for a job.

It becomes a potentially problematic when a dancer becomes comfortable enough that they let things slip with out meaning to. The first time a dancer accidentally told me her real name. I suddenly turned and looked at her with a big “Ah Hah!” expression. She immediately became massively defensive. It was weird. I have always been very respectful and polite to her. Yet that reaction set off all her danger instincts. Eventually I developed the rule of three when it came to things like this. Until a dancer mentions something personal three times before I’ll acknowledge it. Until then I’ll simply act like I didn’t notice the fact she just told me where she lives, or hands me her driver’s license (provided she has one) while looking for her lip gloss. As long as I act like its not important most dancers will not feel threatened.

I went along at this level for quite some time. I was “club friends” with the dancers. They were completely relaxed with me at the club, yet I couldn’t tell you the most basic thing about them outside the club. This changed when I became a regular for one of the more elite dancer/queen bee girls. It may sound odd but I used to be intimidated by the really hot girls that everybody went to the rack to see. I assumed that they always had some sort of big roller who was going to pay them tons of money just to sit with them. I always talked to the girls who would approach me. I don’t think a lot of dancers realize that a dancer who will walk up and talk to a lone customer will become much more attractive than the six foot bleach blonde pipe cleaner with massive boobs.

The elite girl actually approached me one slow night. We hit it off and began a friendship that we still maintain (to lesser degree) to this day. The first thing that changed is that she started treating me like another dancer when it came to conversations. It would be funny to watch the reaction of other dancers when the elite girl would start talking about a subject that would normally be considered taboo. I suppose this is the point I became “Harmless Todd”. But once that barrier had been broached, I could be trusted with personal information conversations changed permanently. The elite girls endorsement gave me credibility as club insider and not a crazy customer.

I also discovered the ability to keep my mouth shut about things and not pass along gossip (no matter how desperately I wanted to) actually turned me into a counselor for some girls. I think I provided a safe ear to bend. I wasn’t part of the dressing room drama crowd, but knew enough about the job enough to be an understanding ear. Unfortunately I also get drawn into some dancer conflicts. On rare occasion I’ve even be a go between to get things sorted out. I like being an insider ultimately, I’ve made some very good friends at the club because of it.