How to avoid emotional involvement with strippers!

Maybe this thread should be retitled 'How not to avoid emotional involvement with your fantasy life!'

Bookguy: You might've hit upon another element of why I like to get "emotionally involved". It IS kind of a thrill to know that I've got dancers calling me to talk to me. Also, I've mentioned to my inner group of friends (well, three friends, not counting fellow TUSCLers), my relationships with my faves and ATFs. THEIR reaction to that - a sort of hero-worshipping awe - definitely adds to the lure.

Actually, I'd personally LOVE to have the opportunity to get "emotionally involved" (in a good way) with one or another of the girls I've met who strip. They just so HOT looking, I think I'd be in hog heaven if I actually thought they were a part of my "real" social network and not just paid for their time.

Casualguy: Yep, what you described is THE recipe for emotional involvement. Spending a lot of time, exchanging personal info, taking it OTC. Been there, done that... experiencing the EI. It's not all bad, but it sure as hell complicates things.

If the turkey cooker is there next week. I'm, fucked. I can't say no to the turkey or the providerr

How not to get emotionally involved? Don't spend too much time with the dancers and don't go out to clubs drinking with a carefree attitude. Suggesting things like going out with strippers may get much more positive feedback then you expected and then you're getting personally involved before you know it. I guess it's too late if you already know her real name and phone number and visa versa. Of course if you leave it at that, you can get cheaper dances unless you decide to go further. I guess you can always ask yourself this question, if you were in a bar, would you ask the girl out?

Of course none of the above works if the dancer is determined to get more personal with you.

"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 ..." My experience exactly.

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.

Fondl: I hope you spend the weekend searching for that poem... it's sounds like a good read. I like the excerpt, 'cause it sounds like it nails some of the feelings we go through.

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...

It's not emotional involvement that you need to worry about. As others have said that is half the fun. Problems arise when a customer develops unrealistic expectations as far as what will and will not happen with a dancer. Many dancers are more than happy to build trusting relationships with customers but the key word there is "CUSTOMER". You can get to know a dancer pretty well ITC but you only know what she wants you to know about her personal life.

Thank you, DougS. The part of the poem that I like best is -

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.

The only reliable way to avoid emotional involvement with strippers is to stop paying them. You'll learn very quickly how artificial their emotional involvement with you has been. The question is whether you would want to do that, or whether you like the artifice and want to continue with it. Presuming you wouldn't want it to end, at least contemplating it should impress upon you that the emotions you're in danger of being consumed by are based on a fantasy.

Fondl: Like the poem! Be sure to post the Emo The Rat if you ever find it!

Maybe "compartmentalizing" is the solution.

I view emotional involvement with a stripper as "letting my inner child out to play." It makes clubbing more fun. But the adult in me still has to be ready to step in and take charge if it becomes necessary, just as you would with any kid for whom you were responsible. You can't let him (or your emotions) run amuck.

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.

You are all telling me the same thing. It is OK to get emotionally involved. Even good but leave it at the club, when you go home. I buy that but cannot keep her out of my mind between visits to the club. Lust?

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?

There's an old saying that goes something like, "The love for a stripper lingers as long as her perfume on your clothes. To make it move on, air them out or waft a new on in."

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?

"How to avoid emotional involvement with strippers?"

Why would you want to? That's half the fun. You just have to make sure it doesn't get out of hand.

IGU:
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.

There's nothing wrong with getting somewhat emotionally involved with strippers. It's bound to happen anyway, and it makes it all more fun. The problem comes from throwing your heart into the hope that your ATF relationship will turn into a real life romance. It doesn't happen very often, and when it does, it's not because of how much the customer pined for her and planned his moves. It's usually because she made the move without much prompting. Then, of course, it usually turns ugly in short order.

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.

What works for me is to remember that, to the dancers, it is all about the Benjamins. I work the same way. I can get emotionally worked up in front of a jury about a particular client's case, but once the verdict comes in, I'm on to the next one. Hell, the next one might call for me to take the exact opposite position as the last one--and I'll be just as passionate about it, as long as the hourly rate is paid. Perhaps being a trial lawyer allows me to be more dispassionate than some other people about the nature of the stripper/customer relationship. Even with a dancer that I've had an amiable OTC relationship with for a couple of years, and that I occasionally just chat with over the 'phone--my assumption has always been that if the money did not flow from me to her, the coochie would not flow from her to me.

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?