Charles Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest applied to topless dancers being programmed to fail

Beautiful girls with personalities that won't quit. They seem to have it all. And with brains too. Not heartless like so many we might meet. I meet them in the strip clubs but I know they are everywhere, to be found in all walks of life. But it is in the strip clubs where I hang out. Too many of them in and out of jail, often into drugs, and the guys they end up with I wouldn't let into my home and neither would you.

Meanwhile, other women, undeserving women, have husbands driving Mercedes and BMW's. They travel all over the world and go skiing to places like Aspen, Sun Valley, and Vail. They went to private schools or to public schools and met the right guys. Some we call gold diggers. Why them? Because they were dealt a good hand of cards to play with?

And the others? What kind of deck were they given to play with? Somewhere in that deck isn't there an ace-an ace they can't find?

I remember a woman in her thirties dancing at the Paradise club telling me: "Jack-I know I will be in my eighties someday if I live that long and I still will not have experienced a good relationship with a guy. Several times I have met some great guys in the clubs who wanted me and I blew it with them. Deep down I know I am going to get hurt. He's going to fuck me over. So I decide to not let it happen and sabotage things before it goes too far.

She was once married to a guy who had a good job but she started to make good money dancing and he didn't want to work anymore. Quit his job and she ended up working in a massage parlor as a prostitute. She thought she loved him, she told me, and did it just for him and to pay the bills. He was beating her up and she still thought he loved her. Until finally she couldn't handle it and killed him.

Back to earth Jack. That was a wild tale. Might just be another lie among the many being told in the clubs. No matter since it could be true.

There is a girl, a very pretty blonde, who is working in one of the clubs. Lives close to where I am living. Sits down with me and we have a drink together. Then she tells me she's in love with me and wants to go out with me outside the club. I'm thinking----"I didn't ask for this and how can she be in love with me since she's only known me for several weeks?. And she's not gotten to know me at all. I'm just this fun guy who takes lots of great pictures and who has written a novel."

I tell her--"How can you love me? You don't really know me. We've never been out together. Those are just words coming out of your mouth." She answers-"Is that wrong? Are you mad at me because I love you?"

It is like the air all around us....words uttered by those who don't mean them. I keep telling myself the only thing that matters is one's actions. The words mean nothing...that is, unless I write them. "Where is this girl coming from?" I ask myself as I look at her over my bottle of Budweiser.

Each night I see her she comes onto me--then gets drunk and goes home with her boyfriend. "She's dumping the guy" and I don't believe her. She's very pretty yet seems much more empty headed than most of the girls I know in the club. One night I return from the club and there is a phone message from a woman who had called at 8:30 PM. I am well lit and can't make out who it was. One of those messages that goes...."Hi. What are you doing? Please call me. I'll be home all night."

A week later she comes up to me in the club, saying to me, "Jack, I want to spend tonight with you. You know what I want. I will drive to your apartment after the place closes. Do you want me?" "Sure I want you." What else am I going to say? But she has lied many times and liars don't come through. She's not there long because she takes a customer into the back--to do a private no doubt. For a moment we are standing close together as her face beams, her eyes beckoning. She's cute and I want her right then. After that the beers go down easily. Afterwards I go back to the apartment, leaving the door open, and go to bed. not giving a damn one way or the other. There is no visitor at my apartment early that morning.

It's no big deal. Just another liar. "What was she thinking about anyway?" I ask myself. Playing games? Or really wanted to do it but as her shift drew to a close the lure of drugs takes over?

Jade has an idea when I talk to her about it on the phone. It doesn't take Jade long to come up with something and like me she's a practical joker. We decide that the next time I see the girl I'm going to tell her------"Damn, that was great sex Friday night but the least you could do was to stay and cook me breakfast in the morning." I would have expected her to reply: "Me? I never came over. Something happened." Then I would have said: "You mean it wasn't you who snuggled into bed with me when the lights were out? Damn, I wonder who it was then. A lot of girls know where I live. I just hope she was good looking."

Next time I see her she's avoiding my eyes but finally I catch her standing close to the bar. Right off I'm telling her----"Damn, that was great sex last Friday night." She gives me a bewildered look and walks away."

Doesn't matter. She's not dealing with a straight deck anyway. I know she's going to avoid me from then on. Either out of shame for screwing up or because she knows I'm not going to accept her line of bullshit.

There are other pretty girls in this club and there is one I really like. Always have and always will, no matter what she is or what she's going to do. And she's been doing the wrong things for a long time.

As cute as the other blonde is, this one's even cuter. I've known her a lot longer and not known her at all. She's articulate and unlike the other one she has curiosity that is always leading her into new directions. At times she is contemplative. At other times she is the life of the party. She can be as crazy as I am. I love her figure and I love her just the way she is. And that covers a lot of ground.

She's head and shoulders over the other girl----tender deep inside-and when she wants to be, outrageously funny. She's quick on a computer keyboard when the other girl cannot be bothered.

She told me she wants to be loved for herself more than she wants anything else. I love her for herself....just because she is what she is. More than that there's a chemistry I very seldom feel. I'm not the only one who loves her.

Why does she hate herself? When it should be so obvious that everyone loves her to death. She should be going on those ski trips to Aspen and Vail, dressed in the latest ski outfits, taking in the finest restaurants, traveling to Paris, or romping around the Great Wall of China, her trips paid for by the man of her choice. Millions of men would be proud to take her.

The barriers are too strong------barriers she has put around her. Only insignificant others can ooze behind those barriers and get close to her. She wants to travel, she told me once. She would like to get her college degree and part of her wants that.

Are those only words? Cheap and without meaning. Is that what she really wants? Or do her actions say what she really wants to say as she pulls away from anyone worthwhile trying to get close to her? If she really wants to travel then why does she choose to be with someone who will never be able to take her places and who will end up sponging off her the way most of them do?

Eyes wanting to close now. Too many nights partying as scenes unfold before me. As if they happened in another lifetime-to somebody else. A dream-a vision I want to forget. There's a little girl only eight years old. Her mother and daddy have split apart. The step father is nothing but kind to her. He is interested in how she's doing in school. Buys her a four wheeler. But she wants her real daddy. She has an older brother and when it came time to unwrap the Christmas presents he got nice things while she received worthless trinkets. She's nothing in her real daddy's eyes. Much later on her brother moves out of the house to live out of state with her daddy. Her dad ends up kicking her brother out of his house over a trivial incident. That's the way he was taught how to handle sons and daughters since his own father had kicked him out of the house.

The little girl becomes older. No matter how hard her step father tries to get close to her she recoils, thirsting instead for the love from her real daddy who is incapable of love. Clinging hopefully that she can make it right. Between her daddy and her. As for the stepfather becoming friends with him is betraying her real father. She never gets close. She can't.

She grows older--going through High School, then she flunks out of college. Meanwhile she has a number of boyfriends each one of them in his own way, incapable of real love. Other boys, then men, want to date her. She doesn't return their phone calls. She stands them up. She treats them like garbage. Others, like her real daddy, who can't love her, who don't have the capacity for love, she holds on a pedestal up high.

I get a second wind and come back to earth forgetting about the vision of the little girl crying out for her real daddy. And start thinking again about the young dancer everyone loves. She's like a colt. Approach it and try to get close and it will run away. Leave it alone and its curiosity will bring the colt up close to investigate. There is nothing to be done about it. She will always be looking for the man who will never love her just like the little girl, another girl, always will look for men like her daddy whom she craves. Like the colt she will run from anyone who does.