I often find myself in position of being a “friendster” to
most of the dancers I know. I’m both a friend and a customer at the same time.
While this is generally a good thing to me, it does have some odd things about
it. For technically curious friendster.com was actually one of the first
semi-successful social networking sites, proceeding both myspace and Facebook.
It also failed fairly quickly and is currently a kind of weird gaming network
site out of Kuala Lumpur .
The best thing about a being a friendster is the fact the
dancer trusts you. You don’t have to worry about the dancer ordering dinner and
$20 drink every time the waitress walks up. For the most part it’s much less
stressful for the dancer. She doesn’t have to worry about being on guard as much.
I don’t think any dancer completely relaxes at work. I never completely relax
at my job. I definitely have the most fun with dancers I’ve built up
credibility with.
There are some down sides to this situation. There are times
when I turn down an invitation from a dancer, I feel like I’m blowing off a
friend. To some degree I am, but I’m also turning down a business transaction. Some
dancers will take advantage of this and play on my emotions. They are having a
bad day/week/month and they really need me to come in to make things go better.
I used to bite on this and turn into the strip club Sit Galahad and head off to
save a dancer from a bad night. I don’t do this any more. I’m paying for the
privilege of her company. It can get really expensive and irritating quickly.
Like most long term business relationships, it’s a mixture
of both friendship and money. My job is like this as well. I have customers I
like and enjoy dealing with regardless of the professional issues. There are
also customers I find utterly revolting or inane but I have to paint on smile
and pretend to enjoy their conversation when I’d rather drive a spike into
skull.
I know it’s in the dancer’s best interest to pretend she
likes me. I wonder if she is secretly rolling her eyes at my jokes, or mentally
plotting different ways kill me as a way to get through the conversation. Most
dancers are much better at feigning interest than I am at figuring it out so
I’ll just stay fat, dumb, and happy.
As enlighten as I’d like to think I am being friends with
dancers outside the club is still a little awkward at times. One time I fixed a
computer monitor for a dancer’s parents. I figured I was just going to drop it
off at her place on my way home from work. Instead I ended driving over to her
parent’s house and hooked up the monitor for them. It was really odd meeting
her parents. Her parents knew she stripped. While they weren’t thrilled with
her job they were supportive of her. They also knew I was one her customers
from the club.
If they were uncomfortable with me they never showed it. I
could never shake the fact that I used to pay their daughter to take her
clothes off. The entire time there they warm and gracious to me the entire time
I was there. They just treated me like I was one of the family. Some strippers
come from screwed up families, but not all of them. I don’t think I’ve met
nicer down to earth people than her parents
Most of my friendships with dancers outside the club never
last. I suppose this isn’t any different than job. There have been people I’ve
worked with over the years that I’ve become good friends with, yet over time we lose
track of each other. When you work with somebody the job becomes a common point of interest. When
they go somewhere else you lose that. Not immediately at first, but after a
while things change some much that they no longer interested.
With the dancer the common point of interest is the club.
When she quits working at the club you lose the point of interest. The social
awkwardness of strip clubs makes things that much more difficult. A lot of
dancers want to break completely from the stripper world. They don’t want to
explain they know me from when they worked as a stripper. There is a social
bias against the strip club world. Life is hard enough without having to contend
with that as well.
