How to avoid emotional involvement with strippers!
shadowcat
Atlanta suburb
In the last 5 years, I have gotten emotionally involved 3 times. 2 of them have quit the business and are no longer a part of my life. The 3rd is still very active in it. On another thread, you all told me how stupid it would be for me to invite her to live with me. I agree and won't do it.
But how do you stop it from happening. Maybe you have known her for 4 years or maybe only 4 months. She treats you like you want to be treated. You spend a lot of time just talking and get to know each other real personally. You spend a lot of time in the couch room getting real personal. Maybe you go out to lunch or maybe you actually fuck.
All that is emotional involvement to me. They say that women get more emotionally involved when it comes to sex than men. That may be true of young guys but it is certainly not my case. I don't want to fuck them, if I don't feel some emotion for them.
So do I ignore my emotions and go without or do I just throw consequence to the wind and jump in?
But how do you stop it from happening. Maybe you have known her for 4 years or maybe only 4 months. She treats you like you want to be treated. You spend a lot of time just talking and get to know each other real personally. You spend a lot of time in the couch room getting real personal. Maybe you go out to lunch or maybe you actually fuck.
All that is emotional involvement to me. They say that women get more emotionally involved when it comes to sex than men. That may be true of young guys but it is certainly not my case. I don't want to fuck them, if I don't feel some emotion for them.
So do I ignore my emotions and go without or do I just throw consequence to the wind and jump in?
Got something to say?
Start your own discussion
20 comments
Of course none of the above works if the dancer is determined to get more personal with you.
Getting to know my ATF was like peeling an onion very slowly. Each layer revealed a new and different person. I think I know her better than anyone else ever has or ever will. She probably knows me that well too. But it took a very long time. The first 6 months I knew her I would have said that she was a very trusting person. A year later when I got to know her better I would have said the exact opposite.
Doug S, I reproduced that poem here in it's entirely about a year ago. Maybe someone can ressurect it.
Yoda: I agree that you are only going to get to know a dancer - or any girl - to the degree that they want you to. I'm a really good listener, and also tend to be on the quiet side when - especially when I don't know them very well. Those factors usually combine to get the girls talking more about themselves, and I believe they sometimes surprise themselves by how much they open up to me in a short period of time.
Of course on MY side of the conversation, I'm taking in all of the information and making mental notes (and later, even some written notes). I believe that learning some of these details, especially the really personal ones that I would THINK not every guy is hearing about, starts that feeling of intimacy.
As a human being, we all desire that intimate feeling with those of the opposite sex, and I thrive on it. Maybe it's lust... maybe love, but most likely it's more the love of that exciting feeling of being in love.
I beleive that explains what I get out of it. I've been married for many years (21!). After that many years, that excited feeling of actually being in love is long gone, even though you may love your spouse, it's not that "new, exciting, tingly" feeling that you got when you were in HS.
Ah HA! Again, we come back to the HS years and completing that full circle is the attraction to the young girls...
Sorrry... it's been a long day and its getting late, and the rambling is flowing...
An angel on a pedastal
or the devil in disguise
I was never really sure
both lurk deep within her eyes
I think that's the best thing I've ever written becaue it's such an acurate description of how I felt about her at the time. When I first met her I thought she was one of those "what you see is what you get" kind of people. Later when I finally got to glimpse beneath the facade (which I doubt that very many people have ever done) I learned that's she's one of the most complex people I've ever known. I think her soul is very old.
I actually wrote a humorous poem about this some years ago. It was called "Emo and the Rat" and chronicled the ongoing battle between my emotional side (Emo) and my rational side (the Rat). I wish I knew where it was, I seem to have misplaced the floppy that held all my poems. Most of them weren't very good anyway but I enjoyed writing them, and at the time it helped me deal with my depression. It would be kinda fun to read some of them again. The only one I remember is -
I met a pretty Funny Girl
dancing in tall shoes
she smiled a smile that said hello
and chased away my blues
(the opening lines from the poem "Smile for Me" by FONDL)
The poem ended with the lines -
Remember me
... and smile.
- because she was getting ready to quit dancing and I didn't think I'd ever see her again. Fortunately I was wrong.
Is that enough emotional involvement for you all? I've actually become quite adept at compartmentalizing and controlling my emotions, but I had to learn the hard way. Maybe we all do.
My 30 YO daughter worries about me living alone and has threatened to move back in with me. I suggested that I could get a 25 YO stripper to move in with me (joking). She replied "that will work" (joking). I like the no hassels that comes with not having an SO. And plan to keep it that way.
At 65, I still like and want sex but not with a grandmother. She has to be young and beautifull and I have to have some emotions for her. I also understand that I am going to have to pay for it with money. I don't mind. It is still cheaper than having an SO to support.
What do I do with the 50 or so cards and letters that I have from my previous 2 ATF's? Burn em? I still think about both of them. Emotions! Anyhow, thanks for your advice. I have things under control and think that I can keep it that way.
Bones: Instead of $50, would you settle for a green thong?
I don't exactly know how to advise against "getting involved." I do know, that many psychological studies suggest that males are actually much MORE emotionally reactive, and victim to our emotions, than females are. Women tend to associate "big" events (anniversaries, having sex) with big emotions, while men are capable of hair-trigger wholesale emotional change on the basis of the smallest of events. So, for example, if a girl has one nice kiss with a guy, she feels only so deeply for him as one one-thousandth of a committed relationship would be implied by one one-thousandth of a makeout session. But a guy can fall totally in love with her on the basis of one kiss.
This understanding runs contrary to the more traditional view, that females are somehow more "victim" to their emotions than males. I think the two understandings can actually co-exist, if you simply recognize that a woman has many more, fleeting, rapidly changing emotions, than a man. This means, sure, she "has to" act on first one, then another, then another; but HE "has to" have the one, and then continue to have it, perpetually, painfully so. Both can be emotionally reactive, but the woman has the advantage of her emotion, itself, doing her the favor of changing out from under her, sometimes right away from the damaging feeling and on to something more productive. The man can't rely on his inner volatility so readily.
Emotional reactivity is something that a lot of gurus preach against. In the Zen community, as well as in NLP and other new-age self-help phenomena, there's this idea that no events actually matter all that much. Only, our choice of how to respond to those events. So, as the old adage goes, it ain't what happens to ya, but how ya react to it. If you can learn to "hold" an emotional stance proactively, and "choose" some certain type of feeling about a person, I think you can really move on in this life. If you find yourself in some situation where you need to change your mind about something you previously really cared about, you can simply intellectually choose to abandon the care, and thereby ACTUALLY have the care be abandoned by your mind.
It's a neat trick, not always possible. But simply accepting that this trick can actually exist, and is being used by countless successful people out there, is a major mind-opening experience. Realize that an emotion is a choice. It is your own choice. By volition, you selected it, from among a variety of options, and then focused on that one selection, ignoring the other possible ones, devaluing them, over-valuing this one, to the extent that the other possible choices soon seem utterly impossible. But at the first moment, they were ALL of them possible; you just chose to go down a track that devalued all the other ones. By the third moment, the second had already passed, and you are finally stuck not knowing that in the second moment you might have been wiser to second-guess the first choice. See how it works?
I know that the get-laid-quickly community sometimes talks around this issue, of emotional proactivity as opposed to emotional reactivity. It's not so much, negative versus positive; as it is, more, about self-actualized versus dependent. To be a fully fledged man in the world, you need to choose to be in charge of many of your feelings. Or, at least, your own internal self-expressions of those feelings. How you express it TO YOURSELF is paramount. Then you move on, to how you feel it. And you choose which one to feel.
I know that I instinctively "feel attached" to tiny people with youngish tits. I can't help but want to "bond intimately" with the hot little scholarship girl from Southeastern Louisiana State whom I met in a strip club in the French Quarter last night. I "want" her to value me, to think of me as an equal (rather than as someone to manipulate into giving her my money), to "need" and "crave" me as much as she expects me to "need" and "crave" her. I also suspect, intellectually, that I can't have that. I chose, therefore, to go to an AMP after meeting her. Sort of worked, sort of didn't. But it worked a heckuvalot better than just going home and moping about her, would have worked.
How old are you, I-give-up? What is your family situation? What other hobbies do you have, aside from fondling small-bodied women? :) Is there something missing in your life? What's missing in mine, is a type of happiness from work and love, that fills many other people's voids. (I'm sure you're familiar with my lack of decent employment. It's a consistent theme in my life.) I become a sex addict instead, craving "intimacy" and paying for it in fits and starts, rather than building it from a truthful foundation. I haven't "made a new friend" in about ten years; instead, I've "done a new girl" whose real name I don't know, whom I'll never meet again. It's the same instinct for connecting with another person; but in my life, it's done poorly, with insufficient groundwork or long-term planning. Maybe you've got similar issues?
Why would you want to? That's half the fun. You just have to make sure it doesn't get out of hand.
Both Chitown and Chandler make excellent points, and offer good advice.
For a "clubber", which I consider myself to be, getting emotionally attached is the last thing that you _want_ to do. It's against all sound logic, and it potentially makes you an easy "mark", and in a lot of cases, it drives you to drop more green. Of course the worst part about it - you automatically get a ticket to the ride the roller coaster of emotions - a very intense ride, not suitable for those faint of heart.
I think the best advice for avoiding the emotional involvement, and also the easiest method to employ, is put yourself into the mindset that she wouldn't be spending time with you, if she weren't adding to her collection of president's pictures (Hamiltons, Jacksons, Grants Franklins, etc.). It has to be a conscious effort to maintain that mindset, with the mantra "she's only into me for the money".
I can honestly appreciate how you feel though, as I have been and am currently in the same boat. Like Chandler said, getting a little emotionally involved adds to the experience, but it also adds fuel to the fire.
Over the years, I've been pretty good at remaining somewhat detached. Another tidbit of advice passed on from Chandler in not so many words, "keep it in the club". When you are spending a LOT of time with a dancer that you find incredibly attractive, and with whom you seem to share a mutual connection, it's hard enough to keep in mind that she's selling a fantasy. Based upon my experiences, it's when you take that fateful step and attempt to extend those pleasures outside of the club that things get sticky (well... umm... yeah).
I've found that it gets exponentially more difficult to remain detached and to keep things in their proper perspective, when you are dining together, watching movies together, and doing time in the local hotel together. Things become even more intimate, and if the dancer you are with happens to be very good at perpetuating the fantasy, you are plunged into that area where you begin to feel like there is more to the situation than what there is in reality. Maybe she might even be having those feelings, too - and with any thought like that, that even slightly implies that she "likes you", you are already slippin' down the slide. Believe me, it can be a long ride down.
I think it's inevitable to get those feelings. After all, I'm only going to be spending massive amounts of time with a girl that I'm extremely attracted to, and I'm only going to pursue the OTC experience with those that I'm comfortable with and those that that possess that special "something" that makes me value her companionship. (although, there have been a few OTCs that were completely spur of the moment and based solely on attraction, and thus there was no attachment felt)
So, maybe even a better question than "how do I avoid the attachment?", is "how do I get rid of the feelings?", or maybe even "how do I deal with the feelings?"
Time... I think time is the cure. In the cases of my prior ATFs, it was over time that we either grew apart, or I just started feeling like I wasn't getting back, what I was putting in... or, like what happened a few months ago, I stumbled into my ATF that made me completely forget about the prev ATF.
Still, you have got to keep in mind that it's a fantasy - very difficult to do, especially when it feels so GFE-ish. I'm still of the opinion that my ATF cares about me - at least to a degree. Do I think there's a future there? No. There are far too many extenuating circumstance - both on my side and on her side - that would make the chances of that happening far less likely than me hitting the PowerBall. If there were no extenuating circumstances, maybe? Who knows... I'd like to think so, but it's thinking like that that got me where I am today.
Ultimately, I think that's why I read and post here. It's a form of therapy.
So, my approach is to appreciate strippers in the club, but not do anything special to try to extend that to outside the club. And not to believe that all the good times we spend together in the club are insufficient unless we're also talking on the phone or meeting for lunch.
Thus, with this attitude, I have no problem avoiding emotional involvement.
I do feel, by the way, as a matter of human psychology, that the female is more emotionally needy from 15 to about 30. After that, men are more in need of emotional support. Why do you think so many men curl up and die after retirement from paid employment, or from the death of a spouse?