Out smarting a stripper

...or out smarting this stripper is harder that you may think, not impossible, not evenly slightly impossible, but most of the time I have a leg up on you (literally, and figuratively). I'm probably not nearly as drunk as you(if at all for that matter), and I know you are trying to be witty and run circles around me. Which means you are throwing the first pitch, and I've got a little more time than you to come up with a response. However, it has been stated at times that my logic might be a little feeble, I beg to differ of course, but it does help if you actually have logic, that's you know logical. Like... saying that I'm tricking you with a dance, just because you think with absolutely no explanation of how I am tricking you isn't exactly solid. Also, saying that I'm tricking you because I'm not going to go home with you at the end of a single dance, is also not exactly solid, I mean really logically think about it....

Here is a cute photo of a dog dressed 

like Mr. Monopoly to help you think

Cost of an average date say dinner and a movie
Dinner at a decent/trendy-ish resto $150
A movie +snacks $40
(if you go to one of those places you can drink it would be about 80, those places are great one of the local ones apparently brings you chilled junior mints in a chilled cocktail glass. How fun is that? Pretty fun by my standards) so add on another 40 or so.
Cab from dinner to movie $10
Total cost $200
This is your first date you probably aren't getting laid.

Cost of Dinner followed by drinks
Dinner at the aforementioned resto $150
Cab to bar $10
Drinks 4 cocktails and @$11 for your date $44
5 beers ?$30? I don't drink beer so I don't know how much it cost
6 shots of bourbon @$8 $48 because it's gotta get crazy at some point right?
Total cost $282

Now lets just average those together for your third date which is traditionally when you would sleep with the girl you are pursuing. $200+$282=($482/2)=$241

And lets add them together so you have an idea of your investment just to "get it in" as they say
$200
$282
$241
Initial investment cost $723.00

Now tell me in what logical way is it possible that any girl is going to sleep with a man who claims to have a good career for $20 it just doesn't quite add up.

Don't get me wrong I know this isn't every dating situation and I know there are lots of less expensive things you can do on dates, blah, blah, blah.
However when requesting sex from someone who really, really, really, really, really, really, DOES NOT HAVE SEX FOR MONEY and you know expects the same respect as the rest of the women in the world, it really doesn't make any sense.

Dirty is a subjective word...apparently

Tonight a very large well dressed man came in who subsequently pulled out a bunch of money. Luis suggested I go talk to him. I crouched down in front of him like I usually do ( Lol's told me ages ago, that it was the least intimidating way to approach a man). As I'm crouching in front of him he says I must only be a pretty face since I was crouching. I stood up and all of a sudden I hear a DAMN GIRL why do you crouch, get up here and sit down.
So I picked a perch on his lap and he said the funniest things...
"I guess I can't buy you boobs, you already have them"
" Damn you've got a nice ass"
" I can tell by the way you are dressed that you are a good girl, and you don't do anything outside the lines" " I mean I am looking for a SLUT you know? I know you ain't a slut"
I followed with...Well you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover (I mean duh...I no sucki fucki)
Karm caught me in the locker room and told me he really wanted to dance with me. I thought it was a good time to ask her what exactly he was looking for before I bit off more than I could chew. I told her what he said, she laughed at me. She was like "Oh...red, he just wants girls to talk dirty"

Later in the evening I met a man who agreed to a dance. After the first dance he told me he was disappointed and that I wasn't giving him some sort of crazy dance. I asked him a bunch of times what crazy things he was looking for, he couldn't really give me an answer he just kept trying to push my buttons. So I ever so politely choked him, applied some pressure to a few pressure points. As I'm carefully hurting this man...He starts talking about how that is the type of dance that he wanted, and why didn't I start out doing that.

So dirty is/was apparently subjective word tonight. It's interesting what the range of dirty is. When I hear dirty in the strip club I think of a few things, and most of them require knowing someones real name and a slight medical history.

Locker room talk

Tonight there was a lot of yelling happening in the locker room. Usually this indicates a fight of some sort, but tonight was a little different. It was yelling we save only for extreme bitch sessions. One of the girls recently was broken up with by a guy who came over to her house right before christmas, had sex with her, left, and then text her it was over.
As we women do sometimes we bond over shit like shitty ex's Stripper B started talking about how she's still in love with a dude who has made it very apparent that he is not that into her unless he is in her. With texts like "I'm at the gym doing me".
I dated a dude once who wouldn't go to the grocery store and seemed to wait for me to go. I can also count on one hand how many times he went to the grocery store for us. Also how many times he offered to pay for some of the groceries. He also would work at the dining room table, while working and I would be making dinner he would turn say he couldn't talk and put in ear plugs, or he would just leave.

Which brought us to the question we are literally 3 of the hottest girl in the club, and I as I like to say do things like go to school, and work out, and cook, I'm a pretty okay (great) catch, but somehow we find people that make it oh so clear THAT THEY JUST AREN'T THAT INTO US. Somehow we just can't get it though our pretty little skulls.

It's cozy down here...

Preface...Thank you all for sticking with me, through all of it.

This weekend something crazy happened...I found the bottom of feeling bad, I know I've been whining about it for months now...Literally, and I had no idea how to change it. I'd been having things that seemed like panic attacks when I would leave work, or when I arrived at work, I was scared to talk to anyone, I started thinking of all my flaws when I approached people at work. I hadn't been sleeping very much, because I've been trying to be a super hero and get everything done, spend time with people blah, blah, blahThat's right everyone Red, was scared to talk to people.

So last night...I snapped, I lost it, I was totally inconsolable. I was just walking around crying, sitting and crying. It was awful. It all started from some kid from Dubai telling me that he didn't want a dance because he wasn't there to dance he was there to fuck...for less than $20. It clicked something in my mind, and replayed all the times in the past few months and men had told me that they didn't think a dance was worth $20, and there was no value in it to them. Which in my dumb, dumb, stripper brain translated too...YOU AREN'T GOOD ENOUGH. (Which is absolutely not true at all, of course I am worth it.)  I started laughing at him, and shaking him a little bit, it occurred to me that his english was not the best, and sadly started telling him how much he hurt my feelings and how upset I was that some smelly kid with bad hair and bad breath didn't think I was good enough, that I work out all the time, and I go to school, and I wear a DDD cup bra or for the rest of the world a F cup and a great ass, and long gorgeous hair. I looked so crazy, SO FUCKING CRAZY. He laughed, and laughed as I was talking about how upset I was, and doubled checked to make sure he didn't understand me. I suppose that's one of the joys of this job, sometimes you can say crazy shit and no one hears you.

The momentary water works started then. I pulled it together. Moved on.

Then I went and asked another gentleman for a dance and he turned me down for someone else, which is totally fine, she's very sweet, but I really didn't understand at that moment why I was being turned down for others left and right. I KNOW, I KNOW, DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS. That's totally fine, I understand.  As a friendly reminder I look like this...

I'm the one on your left..

I also look like this...

...just in case you were curious.

THEN, THEN, I TOTALLY lost my shit. I started crying, and crying, and talking about how I didn't understand what was wrong with me, and why I wasn't good enough, or why I wasn't attractive enough, smart enough, witty enough. As I'm crying about how awful I feeling, I'm noticing who is trying to console me and who is walking past and not saying anything. That totally made everything worse, I started thinking about how many people I have comforted when they are crying. SILVER LINING NUMBER ONE FIGURING OUT WHO YOUR REAL FRIENDS ARE. So I keep crying like a girl.

I SWEAR IT GETS BETTER FROM HERE AND I BASICALLY QUIT WHINING.

Eventually I realize I totally need to pull it together and try to make some money. So I slam a glass of wine (bad idea...sort of) and hit the floor. A little liquid confidence is needed sometimes. I walk up to this gentleman (all bleary eyed and fuzzy post cry vision, and a little wine brain). I introduce myself to him, and his friend heckles him into getting a dance with me. Just as we sit down for a dance, it occurs to me that know this man, we had really long conversations together, and he rarely buys dances, so all of a sudden I'm really confused, and my confidence has totally returned. This man on various occasions has said that he believes in me, and my dreams, and my love of art, and interest in investing. One time months and months ago we were talking about TED talks, as we were talking about this, he gave me one of the greatest compliments I have ever received, he said "I would love to hear you give a TED talk, I think it would be great".

I went home, watched some crappy tv, and went to bed. I woke up this morning still feeling like shit. So I snuggled my puppy, closed my blinds and slept for most of the day. I woke up around 4 snuggled my puppy some more. I started to think about the previous day, and how everything went down, and I started thinking about my new years resolutions, one of them was really important and it is... that I take better care of myself, that I start being nice to myself, that I quit beating my self up when I'm not perfect in someone else's eyes. I've always been good enough, which is why I felt like I would be a great Stripper because of my confidence.
Somehow my confidence was lost recently, and I know it takes more than one day of sleeping in to regain it but...I thought, and thought, and thought, and I'm going to be just fine. I'm still me, I'm still here, I'm still all the things I toot my own horn about.
So tonight I went to work, and I was me again, shark walk and all, I reminded myself I can't be anyone else except for myself, which is really who I need to be. I've been wondering so much lately why it seems people don't like me and that's why, I must seem so fake lately. So tonight I went back to being me, and tomorrow I'm going to keep being me, in every aspect of my life, and stop trying to be someone else. SOOOOOOOOOOOO identity crisis is over.

That's the nice thing about finding the bottom, the only way to go is up. Here is to a new year, and an old me, and returning to being the person I love.

Thank you all for sticking with me, through all of it. Reading all my whining, although I don't know all of you personally, but I really appreciate you.