Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. I really mean that. I hope you all feel loved today. Tomorrow you can go back to being hated by everyone if you want, but today should be special. I’m talking to you, guy who proposed the new freedom of speech policy.

Personally, true love wasn’t in the cards for me this year, though, so I’m going to have to settle for a different kind of love: stripper love.

Any guy who has never been to a strip club will think this is stupid, and every girl will think it’s stupid regardless. All I have to say to those people is this: You don’t know what you’re talking about, but T-Pain does. Stripper love is very real.

I have fallen in love with a stripper on several occasions, and I’m not ashamed of it. You have to understand, the world doesn’t operate the same way inside a strip club as it does in the real world. You are talking to beautiful women who are paid (very, very well) to make you think they are interested in you. Imagine any girl who has ever buttered you up so you would buy her a drink, and then multiply that by a thousand. You can laugh about how ridiculous it is when you’re sitting around getting ready to go out, but once you get there and you’ve got a professional gaming you up, all bets are off.

It starts off innocently enough. You’re not naive enough to actually think you’re going to get some action at the strip club. You’re not looking to fall in love. You just want to go get drunk and see some skin. You watch the girls dance but one of them stands out for some reason. Maybe she’s not even the hottest one there, but she tickles your fancy. She can tell immediately, of course, because she is a pro. You’re a seal and she’s a shark that smells blood. That’s how it starts.

You fend off the other girls that want you to buy dances from them. Some of them are nasty, others are cute and fun to flirt with… but you’re distracted. You stall for time until your girl makes her rounds.

“What’s your name?” she asks when she finally approaches you. She totally wants you.

She thinks you have a sexy name and she also apparently thinks that she should sit on your lap. Okay, I know it sounds dumb, but seriously dude, this girl is into you. She doesn’t just say that to everybody.

Even so, you’ve got to play it cool because you know her game is tight. She’s not some drunken party girl.

You have already become naive enough to think you might actually get some action at a strip club and you’re not even finished your second beer.When she starts dancing again she’s only dancing for you. Also she’s dancing a little bit for that fat guy at the other end of the bar and kind of for your friend sitting next to you, but you know it’s mostly for you. She blushes when she catches eyes with you. After her dance she comes straight back to your lap; you’re so in. Next thing you know, you’ve bought her three drinks and you’re halfway through a $40 lapdance. You don’t get her number, but she tells you to come back and see her again. That’s basically the same thing. You’ll wonder for a good two days afterwards whether there was a real connection. After that, your dopamine levels return to normal and reality sets in: what the hell were you thinking?

It’s got all the elements of a real romance: nudity, regret, and a hefty price tag. See, who needs a girlfriend?