I can't believe I'm publicly admitting this ... although it's likely just my mom reading this (hey, ma) but I might as well just say it. Because, I just won't do it if I don't tell someone to keep me accountable. Alright, here it is:
I want to do stand-up at an open mic night. And, I'm also not funny.
And none of that makes sense, that's why it's so hard to admit. Nobody has ever told me that I should give it a shot, and come to think of it, I don't think anyone has told me I'm funny either. In fact, I've been told the opposite - I'm, frankly, not smooth at all. Sometimes, I struggle to hold conversations. Especially with strangers, but what's weird is sometimes its even harder with family. When I am in conversation and its flowing, my brain sabotages the moment by thinking, "Shit, am I being smooth?", "Did I remember to wear pants today?", "FUCK I forgot to brush my teeth, now I have to try to hold my disgusting breath in while trying to get words out AND not look like a spaz who all of the sudden speaking through their teeth!."
I'm extraordinarily scared, but I was once an extraordinarily scared bartender who had never made a drink before in her life, and would stand, with her back against the wall, glaring doe-eyed with a gaping mouth across the bar at innocent people trying to enjoy a beer.
I've graduated from that extraordinary level of social awkwardness to somebody who can at least fake it for a while. But you truly cant blame me completely. Our reptile brains are wired to associate speaking in front of a crowd to having to make your case in front of a tribe. In the interest of self-preservation, we must defend ourselves to avoid being castigated or executed. Speaking publicly feels like defending your life, because it was.
I don't feel like its the sharpest tool in the shed for me, and I feel below the baseline of potential I have. I guess the only way to work a muscle is to exercise it. When I was a bartender, learning how to start a conversation with old men who like golf (lets stop with he niceties, its truly the most useless sport there is), it became easy to find something to say. Most people like to talk about themselves, a lot more than they realize. That's kind of why we gravitate to people who ask us how our kids are, or how our vacation went, or how disappointed in the Bills they are too.
I think everyone would benefit from performing stand-up especially because of how you have to read the crowd. I mean, I can think of one last place left in society where people can so blatantly tell you how they feel about what you're saying besides stand-up. Could you imagine if you were in a Zoom meeting and a chorus of booing ensued after somebody needed to be told yet again to unfuckingmute themselves??? Look, I know I'm going to absolutely bomb. But for whatever masochistic reason I want to hear the silence, feel all the shame and suck. I just wanna do it. So, here's my secret. Hopefully, you can hold me to it - by the end of this year.
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