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In relationships, people are often encouraged to think outside of the box. Step outward of their comfort zone. Get creative in an attempt to keep things fun. And while that all sounds good and dandy, in the attempt to do so, I think we all also have to be honest about what we are and aren’t comfortable with.
Like Taryn*, a friend of mine who in an attempt to show that she could hang, went with her husband and their friends to a strip club recently while in Miami. Well, not just any strip club. They checked out King of Diamonds to see what all the fuss was about in the effort to do a joined bachelor and bachelorette party situation for a friend. This was Taryn’s first time in a strip club, and she was admittedly not as comfortable as she thought she would be, but she tried to play it cool and stayed with the other bridesmaids. And because she was with him, her husband probably wasn’t as comfortable as he presumably would have been had it just been him and his own friends.
During the night, a friend of Taryn’s who was also a bridesmaid sent a stripper to give a lap dance to another bridesmaid as a funny, impromptu thing. She paid for the dancer to do her thing for one song. When the woman came over, the fellow bridesmaid, who was clearly not interested in the dance, sent the dancer (not far into the song) to the guy sitting next to her–Taryn’s husband. As the woman started to dance on him, Taryn found herself upset. Like, really upset. Upset to the point that the bride and a couple of bridesmaids had to check on her, rub her back to get her to stop staring at her husband with the evil eye and tapping her leg in a fast, unsteady way. They were hoping she would calm down since the dance lasted less than a minute, not wanting to put a damper on the night. But it was too late. Taryn didn’t really speak to her husband for the rest of the time that they were in the strip club, and when they returned to their hotel room, she told him that his behavior was disrespectful. He felt bad that she was so upset but told her that he didn’t really know what she expected. Neither did I really.
“Come on, girl. It’s really not that deep,” I told her over the phone after she relayed the story days later. “It was the strip club.”
“Naw, but if some dude came up on me and started dancing he knows he would have acted a fool,” she replied. “I don’t need him with some other b—h in his lap. I don’t want to see that.”
I could somewhat get where she where she was coming from–if they were in any other place in the world. However, they were in the strip club. And there is no more appropriate place in the world (aside from the bedroom, of course) for lap dances to happen. Maybe if an agreement was made prior to club entry that they wouldn’t participate in any lap dances that would be one thing. But considering that it wasn’t something he beckoned but, for the first time in the history of the world, the stripper fell in his lap, her anger felt a bit excessive.
But as I kindly tried to explain to her, this is what happens when you do too much in an attempt to make yourself seem like you’re the “down,” “cool” girlfriend or wife. She had no business in the strip club with him knowing good and well she doesn’t even like the idea of him finding other women in general to be attractive. And as previously stated, if there were some ground rules put in place about what would and wouldn’t be acceptable to do (throw dollars on the stage but no lap dances for example), then maybe it would have been worth ruining the night over.
However, it’s her marriage and her feelings, and she has a right to be however angry she wants to. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t something he hid or that Taryn walked in on. It was out in the open, so there was no way things were going to go to any next level or turn into anything other than a dance. And while she may be a bit salty about it, it’s best to try and let it go, and maybe, for the future, set some agreed upon ground rules for situations like this. If not, it’s going to look and sound like she has some deeper concerns, such as trust issues, that they really need to sit down and talk about…
But as always, that’s just my opinion. What do you think? Is she petty for getting bent out of shape over him getting a lap dance at a strip club while she was there?
