Does She Actually Like Me, Or Is It A Trick?

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Doctor’s Note: We’re continuing our look back with Ask Dr. NerdLove – Revised, as we look back at some questions from the earliest days of the column, answer them from a 2023 perspective and see what – if anything – has changed in the intervening years.

This question was originally answered on September 21, 2011

Dear Dr. Nerd Love:

I was at a strip club the other day (my first time in a strip club) and i got a lap dance from a stripper. Afterwards we got to talking about stuff and she kept complaining about her job and i made a few suggestions for a career for her to pursue when she quits. She said i was cute and wanted my number and i gave it to her. She just called me not too long ago and we talked about college and what she should pursue when she quits. After about 30 minutes she said she had to go to work but we should get dinner sometime. My question is should i take her out to dinner or is there something i don’t know? My friend said that strippers just wants my money or she is a hooker. Is this true or is everything just fine?

 – Strip Club Geek

First things first, SCG: let’s drop “hooker” from the vocabulary, ‘k? Leaving aside whether or not the woman in question is a dancer or does any sort of escorting as well, the term you’re looking for is “sex worker”. Hooker is a derogatory phrase that primarily contributes to the marginalization and dehumanization of sex workers. If you like her well enough to consider going on a date with her, you can use terminology that doesn’t degrade her.

Now that aside, let’s address the elephant in the room: this is a complicated question under the best of circumstances. Strippers, like go-go dancers, shot girls, waitresses, bartenders and other folks who work in the service industry, work for gratuities. As anyone who has done a service industry job can tell you, your attitude and rapport with the customers makes a significant difference in your tips. You aren’t, for example, going to find someone acting like Dr. House while slinging drinks at most bars or restaurants. People who are more positive and friendly tend to get better tips.

Women, in particular, who work in the service industry have a financial incentive to be “professional” flirts. A lot of straight men will tip more heavily when they feel like their server, bartender or dancer likes them as more than just a customer. You could write an entire doctoral dissertation on the motivations behind this – are they flexing to demonstrate that they’ve got money to throw around, are they trying to curry favor by functionally buying her affections, etc. – but ultimately it doesn’t really matter. 9 times out of 10, when you think that your bartender, waitress or the person giving you a lap dance is flirting with you, they’re doing so because it benefits them, not out of romantic or sexual interest.

Put a pin in that number; we’ll be coming back to it.

Now, a lot of folks understand that this is exactly what’s going on. And in fairness, flirting can be fun, even when you know it’s ultimately about making money, more than actual interest in you. But just as many people… well, they have a tendency to confuse professional niceness with genuine interest. A lot of people – mostly, but not exclusively straight men – will mistake someone being polite for flirting, and round up a professional interaction to genuine attraction, particularly if they don’t have much in the way of social experience or platonic relationships with people of the gender they’re attracted to.

You can even see this dynamic in parasocial relationships with camgirls, Twitch streamers or YouTubers – people assume a far more intimate and serious connection with the creators who they interact with, despite the fact that they don’t have an actual one-on-one relationship with them.

This is especially true in sexually charged environments like strip clubs. “The stripper really likes me” is probably one of the oldest and hoariest cliches out there, and many dancers – for obvious reasons – will, if not outright encourage this belief, at least, not try very hard to dissuade it. Dancers, after all, have financial incentive not just to encourage their customers to buy dances or to tip them when they’re on stage, but also to become regulars, who will come see them with greater and greater frequency.

There are a number of ways to encourage or at least not discourage those beliefs, including giving the illusion of greater accuracy and intimacy. A number of dancers will give “their” number – often a burner or not their personal number – to repeat customers. While this can be a way of continuing to connect with them, it’s also a very effective way to encourage their regulars to come see them, whether through texting to say “hey I haven’t seen you in forever”, sending sexy pictures or flirting.

What this means is that it’s safer to assume that while the dancer may like you as an individual, they primarily see you as a customer, not a potential partner. If you’re someone who’s able to keep this dynamic in mind, then all is well. But a lot of folks… well, motivated reasoning is a motherfucker, and it’s very easy for them to convince themselves that this is the real thing and not just someone doing their job.

So while your friend’s description is considerably mercenary in its tone… it’s not entirely wrong. Dancers in the club are working, and encouraging repeat customers and regulars is a part of that work. Especially since dancers in most strip clubs are considered “independent contractors” and not employees of the club itself. Having ones own steady base of regulars helps ensure financial security, especially if she leaves one club for another, starts an OnlyFans or other gigs.

However, people are people, regardless of what they do for a living, and very few people are so good at compartmentalizing that they can put an impenetrable barrier between their personal and professional lives. So if we go back to that 9 out of 10 times that I mentioned earlier, there can be times when you actually did make a legitimate connection with them and they’re interested in you as more than just another customer.

But those are the exceptions, not the rule, and you can’t bank on being the exception. Doing so is a great way to end up dealing with unnecessary disappointment and heartbreak, with the added sting of having paid a not-insignificant amount of money to learn this lesson.

Now, with that firmly in mind… if the conversation went as you said and if she extended an actual offer to get dinner and not a polite fiction, then I don’t see anything wrong with taking her up on it.

But that’s an extremely big “if”, and quite frankly I’d recommend taking it with a lot of salt. It is theoretically possible that you are currently the exception to the rule. However, I think the odds are better that this was her being polite more than anything else. However, if you keep your head about you – which is going to be easier said than done, especially since this was your first trip to a strip club – I don’t necessarily see the harm in at least asking.

Now, if she accepts, I wouldn’t recommend trying to impress her by taking her on a fancy date or to an expensive restaurant; if anything, I would recommend going to a place you already go when you’re getting dinner with friends. At the very least, you won’t be coming across as trying to woo her by waving your wallet around and you also won’t be out the cost of an expensive meal if a) she does accept a dinner date and b) this is a hustle to lock you in as a regular. 

There is one more thing I would suggest that you consider, and that’s what it would mean if you did start a relationship with her. A lot of folks like the idea of dating a stripper… right up until it’s time to deal with what that would actually mean. Right now, you’ve got the fantasy of her leaving her job and becoming a civilian. I am here from the future to tell you that this is unlikely at best. Lots of guys think that once they’ve “landed” her, then things will change – she’ll quit dancing entirely or at least quit doing lap dances. In reality… that’s not how this works.

Leaving aside that dancing is often better money per hour than most “mundane” jobs, that fantasy says a lot about how much respect one has for folks who do sex work. A lot of people are cool with women doing sex work right up until they realize that sex workers aren’t going to stop just for them. At this point, they tend to get upset at the idea that someone who does lap dances for a living will still be giving lap dances to other people and will have very bad reactions to the idea that other folks will be touching and grinding “their girl” and thinking that the stripper really likes them.

Similarly, dancers tend to live dancer’s hours, which means late hours and working weekends, when the clubs are likely to be the most busy. If you work a traditional 9-to-5, dating a stripper means that you’re not going to have an easy time seeing each other; you’ll be getting off work right about the time when she’s going into hers. So if you aren’t working similar gigs – especially in the service industry, which tend to have similar hours – a lot of your relationship will involve brief snatches of seeing one another and lots of time apart.

If that isn’t something you’re going to be able to handle – and I mean without complaint – then my advice would be to let this go. Dating her would be a varsity level challenge for you, especially if you’re already having to ask if she’s really into you or not. While I’ve no doubt she’s a lovely woman, I suspect that the logistical issues alone would make this unfeasible for you. Add in the sex-work aspect and unless you’re very secure in yourself, I think this would be a poor choice for you.

So yes, it’s entirely possible that she’s genuine and likes you. But whether that’s the case or not… I don’t think this would be the best relationship for you to pursue. But that’s ultimately your call.

Good luck.

This question was originally answered on October 20, 2011

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

Bear with me, I’ve got a complicated problem.

During my freshman year of college, I was in a one month long relationship with an… I’ll just go with intellectual. We broke up on the grounds of race (I was the forbidden white girlfriend) but we had gotten along perfectly well beforehand. I’m a junior now and we had discussed getting back together over the summer, but decided against it on the grounds that he wanted to pursue a relationship with another girl and he felt like he would regret it if he didn’t try.

Last night we chatted on Facebook and this morning I received a message from him that confuses me and quite frankly pisses me off a little.

He says he misses me and wants to be open to dating again. But he makes it clear that he’s not asking me out. I don’t know what he wants and I’m starting to think that his attempted relationship with the other girl never got off the ground and now he’s running back to where he might have a chance.

He always had a problem that our past relationship jumped from us being casual friends (we were in the same club) to dating. He seems to think that relationships should start by creeping in through the friend zone, when it usually doesn’t work out in your favor if you go that route. I’m not interested in being second banana to anyone and I really hate being jerked around like this. He’s really nice and smart otherwise, but his over-analyzing and attempts to sound righteous and poetic in his message just leaves me feeling confused and manipulated instead of persuading me to his side.

Help a nerd girl out? I don’t know what to do now. I suppose I would like to keep him as a friend but I don’t know how to reject this proposal gently.

Thanks, 

That Chick with the Confusing Ex

Hoo boy.

Ok so right from the jump, I think this guy’s got some issues with how relationships work. The fact that you knew each other casually before you started dating is… actually incredibly common. In fact, most people meet their partners either through mutual friends or shared activities, and often the connection is one that was developed over time.

I hope that when he says that they should start “by creeping in through the Friend Zone”, he means “starting of as friends before realizing things have developed further”, rather than “trying to hang in there until you wear her down and convince her to date you”. After all, The Friend Zone doesn’t actually exist; there are just people who don’t want to fuck or date you. If he’s bothered that he didn’t have to win you over against your better judgement or somehow seduce you into liking him when you didn’t… honestly that sounds more like he feels like it was too easy or that your relationship didn’t somehow validate his sexy sexy skills or something. Which ain’t a great place to start from.

Unfortunately I feel like this may well be what he thinks, judging by his behavior. The Facebook message sounds very… well, passive aggressive, at best, and weirdly manipulative at worst. He’s signaling to you that he might be open to dating you again buuuuuuuut he wants it clear that he isn’t asking you out. So… presumably you’re supposed to leap at this chance to have him back now that he’s dangled the possibility in front of you. The way you describe it sounds as though he intends this to be the invitation for you to now come clean about how much you want him back and want to try again, rather than his actually coming out and saying “I want you back”.

If that’s the case, then I don’t see any reason why you should go back to him. If he can’t be honest and up front about what he actually wants and instead delivers this Schrodinger’s Request, where he’s both asking to take you back and not, then why should you do the work for him? If he genuinely wants you back, then he should actually cowboy up and say it, instead of playing weird games. Especially if those games carry the underlying message of “…and validate my desirability in the process”. 

Which brings up the next question. In fact, this is one of my standard questions for “should you get back with your ex?“: why now? Like you said, the timing seems a bit sus. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suspect that things didn’t work out with the woman he wanted to pursue and circled back to you. Seeing as how this came on the heels of talking about the possibility of getting back together, I think you’d be justified in thinking that he thought you were still hanging on the line, waiting for him to come back around. If that’s the case, then that says a lot about how he thinks about you, and about how you feel about him.

Now I want to be fair: it’s entirely possible that he started trying to pursue this other woman, realized he’d rather be with you and came back to see if you were still interested too. But if that’s the case, then he should say so, not this weird passive-aggressive “I’m not SAYING I want to get back with you, just that I’d be open to it” bullshit.

So if you actually want to know what he thinks, I’d say call him out on it. Ask him to explain just what he’s asking from you. If he repeats his line of “I’m not asking you back, just saying that…” then tell him “That doesn’t mean anything to me. What do you want?” until he actually explains himself. Refuse to buy in until he’s actually using his words and not this half-assed approach. This includes the other times he’s this wishy-washy and unwilling to commit to saying what he wants or needs. Don’t reward his not-quite-willing-to-commit approach by doing the work for him, make it clear that if he wants something from you – as a friend or as a potential partner – then he has to say it straight up, with no hemming or hawing or attempts at plausibly denying what he said if you aren’t into it.

If he can’t or won’t, then that’s ultimately a him problem, not a you problem, and you’re justified in moving on.

This, incidentally, includes turning him down. I don’t think you need to turn him down gracefully, I think you need to turn him down bluntly.

I think you need to tell him “look, you said X, now you’re saying Y, you won’t say Z and it feels like I’m your second choice after things didn’t work out with the other woman. That’s not good enough for me and I don’t want to date you if you’re going to act like this or treat me like your consolation prize. So if you want me back, you’re going to need to be clear that YOU want ME back, not this weird ‘baffle-them-with-your-bullshit’ approach that you keep using.”

Tell him that and then leave it in his court. You don’t need an answer right away, and honestly, you probably shouldn’t trust what he says in that moment. Tell him to figure out what he wants and then get back to you, then end the conversation until he’s ready to state it flat out. And if he tries to do the whole flowery language and over-analysis, then call him out on it again and tell him, again, that you won’t be treated like that.

If he tries a third time without a flat, no-qualifications yes or no? Then the subject’s closed for good, and he can take it as a lesson to actually say what he means instead of dressing it up in obfuscating florid prose.

I don’t entirely buy into the idea of “you teach people how to treat you”, but making it clear that you’re not cool with his unwillingness to be direct and up front will, at the very least, teach him that a relationship (romantic or platonic) with you is going to require a change in how he communicates. And his response to that will help you decide whether or not you want to bother keeping him in your life at all.

Good luck.