Can you pencil me in?

I don’t think I even own a pencil any more. It used to be you scheduled appointments in pencil so you could erase and changed them. That’s completely pointless now in the computer age. I was recently thinking about what has changed in the strip club experience in the past ten years or so. There is one area that has changed quite a bit. When I first started hanging out I would show up on the same day (Fridays), at the same time. I’d usually see the same girls but not always. I would show up at a specific time, hoping to, but not really expecting to see any specific dancers.

Now I rarely stop by the club at random. I’m almost always invited or am notified in advance that a specific dancer is working. It feels odd to walk into the club at random. I very much prefer to know that a favorite dancer is going to be at the club. It actually makes dealing with aggressive dancers much easier. When a dancer sits down with me I’ll usually tell them immediately that I’m waiting for somebody else. Most dancers will politely excuse themselves. Pushier dancers will come back and say, "I haven’t seen her, do you want to dance since she’s not here". Even the insistent dancer will back off if you tell her you got a text saying the other dancer is coming. Some dancers will back you into a corner to the point you have to literally tell them to fuck off.

One major difference between telling a dancer "I’m not interested" and telling a cars salesman "I’m not interested" is I’m telling the cars salesman I’m not interested in the car. However, I’m telling the dancer I’m not interested in her. It’s impossible to not take this personally. Especially when rejection comes from a pudgy, middle-aged, electrical engineer that hangs out at strip clubs.

While getting invited in makes dealing with Guido the dancer easier, it also tends to really narrow the number of dancers I talk to. I only really talk to dancers and their friends. I can draw direct links with most my current favorite dancers to older dancers that have hung up their heels.

Social networking and technology lends itself to this. With twitter I get regular updates when dancers are going to be working. It used to be getting a cell number from a dancer was a big deal. Not any more. Just to get a dancer to leave me alone, I’ve had her enter her number into my phone then delete it after she left. Talk about living in a fantasy world... This doesn’t happen outside the club when women give me their number.

Another change I’ve seen starting to happen is that dancers are starting to create multiple digital personas. They usually have their dancer digital persona of twitter, blogs, and social networking web sites. They post schedules there and use the media to communicate with customers. Then they have a “real” persona for their friends and family that don’t know they dance.

Some dancers have even started creating a third persona: the dancer commentator persona. A lot of dancers have blogs and twitter accounts where they comment on their fellow dancers and clubs they work with. (They’ve figured out that it's not always the best idea for it to be common knowledge about who is making comments on the internet!) I always find it amazing to read about people who call in sick to work then go out and party, then paste pictures and comments on facebook. Posting things like, “so happy to be getting drunk and not having to deal with my knuckle dragging Luddite boss”. Then they are amazed when the knuckle dragging Luddite boss asks them into the office to explain how sick they really were. I don’t think some dancers would appreciate that the girl next to her thinks her purple outfit makes her look like Barney the dinosaur.

Most of these changes are additions to the strip club current environment. A lot of customers still show up at specific times. I’ve noticed that the smarter dancers have learned how to take advantage of the new media. For the guys who are just stopping by out at random nothing much has changed, but for regulars things have evolved a bit.