On Friday night, a friend of a friend went with a few of her girlfriends (yes, I know it’s confusing) to a local strip club. Sherry had never before visited a strip club, much less a male strip club, so she was a bit *ahem* unprepared for what she witnessed. Reports indicate that she was most curious about the large number of men at the strip club, and in fact, she and her friends were the only women in the room. Sherry, those men you saw were probably gay.

Hearing Sherry’s tale — the details of which don’t concern you — led me to recall my sole trip to a strip club, which I shall now recount for you.

(Before you start writing angry letters about the state of morality in America, please allow me to state for the record that I don’t generally go to strip clubs, for the same reason that I don’t watch pornography or go window shopping. I don’t enjoy perusing the sale racks when I know I won’t be taking anything home.

Pun intended.

Besides, if you want to start a letter-writing campaign let me suggest that you begin with the Hooters corporation. At least the strip club I went to had the decency to admit that it was a strip club. They didn’t bother to advertise themselves as family-dining establishment… but more on that later.)

What had happened was…

One Friday night many moons ago I met up with my friends Robert and Liz for dinner and drinks. At the restaurant we bumped into two of Liz’s ex-coworkers, Peter and Jacob, who apparently had a thing for Liz. (Don’t worry, the importance of this will become apparent in a few paragraphs.) Remember that guy you knew in high school who always had a scam, who always had something up his sleeve? That’s Jacob. Those kind of guys are great to hang out with because they are fun, but you never consider them friendly or trustworthy in the least.

Peter and Jacob invited Liz to hang out with them, and she invited Robert and I along to be her buffer, because she was not interested in this guy at all, and wanted to avoid as much weirdness as possible. (For the uninitiated, the purpose of the buffer is to run interference for your friend; to make sure that they stay out of trouble; and to ensure that they make it home safe and sound.) I am constantly asked to be someone’s buffer, because I’ve got a boyish grin and am everybody’s “good guy friend”. Whatever.

Anyway, these guys decide that they want to go to a strip club, and after a few minutes of refusals, I relented, partly because I had already signed on for buffer duty, but also because I’d never been to a strip club and I was more than a wee bit curious.

The record store, your house of worship, your favorite bar; these are places where you want to be known by name. The police station, the Emergency Room, a strip club; these are places where you do not want to be known by name, so I took it as a bad omen that Jacob was on a first name basis with the bouncer at Leather and Lace. We were shown to a corner table and the drinks and food began to come, courtesy of Jacob’s American Express card and unquenchable narcissism.

My mother told me to never take advantage of a stranger’s hospitality, but my father told me to never pass up a free meal, and as I can only assume that the logic also applies to drinks, Robert and I set ourselves to the task of making the night very expensive for Jacob and his Amex. He could have Liz’s number if he could get it, but it was going to cost him a more than a few dollars.

The thing about strip clubs is that they are designed to do one thing — facilitate the ogling of women — so even when you are sitting in the corner and chatting your friends, it’s almost impossible to avoid looking at the… entertainment. Not that I was trying terribly hard. After one dance, the stripper walked over to the table, gave Jacob a polite nip on the cheek and sat down next to me, as Robert and I exchanged curious glances.

I had no precedent, no grounding… I honestly didn’t know what to do. What would you do if a stripper finished her performance, threw on a bath robe, walked over to you and introduced herself? This protocol is definitely not covered by Miss Manners. I knew, I looked in the index. I recovered as best I could while Jacob made the introductions. I’m sure I mumbled something polite like “nice nipple ring”, but honestly I don’t recall. I was quite tired and flabbergasted.

Luckily(?), I had a few more opportunities to learn the protocol, as Jade (the stripper’s name was Jade) came over after every set to sit and chat. I learned a few life lessons that night, like it is ok to look at a stripper’s breasts if she’s sitting at your table. That’s kind of the whole point of the exercise, and you’re already sitting in a strip club, so restraint has pretty much taken a flyer. More importantly, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, there a three questions that you can ask to jump start the conversation between yourself and a nightclub dancer:

How did the night end you might ask? Jacob started to get a little rowdy with the staff and the other patrons, so Robert and I grabbed Liz (we were the buffers after all), stuffed her into a cab, then went our separate ways into the starry, naked city.