Strip clubs are not about decadence, or fantasy, or even commerce. They are, at their core, about interaction. The dance is not delicate, or disguised. This is not a place where someone can be left alone. You might say that is the point. I might say that I’m trying to watch the game here, and if I desire a word with you, trust me, I will beckon.

Life is full of senseless, empty conversations. We all go through them every day, inventing vague generalities uttered only to end this conversation as soon as possible. Even if you are someone that I like, transferring interaction from Meet to Converse to Mutual Understanding requires an effort that neither of us are willing to put forth. Nothing personal. There’s just so much to do. I’ve got a lot on my mind. So do you. Perhaps there will be a time, friend, when you and I break bread and meld minds. For now, however, I am predisposed. Forgive me.

A strip club, even one as welcoming, clean and hospitable as Rick’s Cabaret, is a minefield of these senseless, empty conversations. At least in the real world, people have the good horsesense to resist sitting right down at the table, unsolicited, and launching into banalities. I know that I am here, and that my presence implies an invitation. I wish it did not, and that I could convey it somehow. Perhaps a sign would help. It is a very important game.

Read the rest over at Deadspin. Also, be sure to check out the post by his partner-in-crime that night, Daulerio.

I haven’t been to a strip club in a long, long time, but my policy was always to tell the girl up front that I wasn’t going in the back room for a lap dance. The response would usually go one of three directions: 1) they’d say “thank you” and move on to a better target, 2) they would see my response as a challenge, pretend they weren’t interested in getting me to pay for a lap dance, and then 15 minutes later proceed to ask me again if I wanted one, or 3) they would find my honesty oddly refreshing and kill their boredom and hatred for their job by actually sitting down and getting to know me.