”I don’t think Ryan likes me very much, but I don’t know
what I did wrong,” said a rookie to one of my partners. My partner told him not to worry, I’m just
shy.
I wrote long ago how people could get the wrong impression
of me based on how I am onstage. Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize that
people can get the wrong impression of me offstage as well. Or maybe they’re right and I’m wrong, which
is a scary thought.
In that last entry, I told the story of the coworker who
told me, ”You are SUCH an asshole! And
the worst part is, you think you’re a nice guy!” I’m not going to keep repeating the same
thing over and over, it’s just, I’m not great at making good first impressions. Apparently, I’m not good at making second or
hundredth good impressions either, since people I’ve met many times over still
haven’t figured out what an amazing, generous, caring and social individual I
am.
In other words, I’ve realized that I’m the one with a
problem.
—————–
Recently, a comic posted something like this on FB, ”This
week I was at Power and had a bad gig, then I was at Big Ben and had a good
gig. Guess that makes me an average
comic.” I commented ”BANNED”- as a joke-
and when I met him later I told him, ”Don’t EVER mention Power in the same post
with another club ever again!” Again, as
a joke, but I could tell from his face that he didn’t know I was joking. He looked like a dog that just got screamed
at by his master. ”Did YOU make this
mess?!”
(And yes, I’ve also covered before the issue of jokes not
being understood as jokes, so I’m not getting into that here again either.)
At least I was aware of this time, immediately, and told him
it was a joke. It was based on another
club owner I know who means it when he tells people not to mention his club in
the same breath as another, for any reason, at any time. I need to stop assuming everyone knows what I
mean all the time.
—————–
”I ran into [a regular at Power] today, he works down the
street from here,” I recently said to one of my fellow club owners. ”Oh, he has a job now?” he replied. ”That’s great! He’s been out of work for a long time, I know
he wasn’t feeling good about that.”
This is someone I’ve seen almost every week for months and I
had no idea. I don’t know anything about
his personal life, we don’t have conversations.
The only thing I know about him is his material, which by this point I
could do myself on stage.
We have a lot of regulars at Power, which makes me extremely
happy. We wanted to have a place where
everyone had an opportunity and I love seeing the same faces week after
week. When Power opened, it was the only
stage available to most of them, but we’ve seen them since get new
opportunities elsewhere, chances they likely would not have had if they hadn’t
been at Power week after week, month after month. I’m proud of them and proud of us! ..and I barely know any of them.
After the show each week, there’s usually a gang of comics
hanging out until the bar closes, and sometimes beyond. I love that too! It’s been a long time since I was in club
where comics liked to hang, I really miss that, and I’m proud that we
established a fun place! …and I never hang out.
I keep saying that I will and haven’t yet. Mostly it’s the fact that I live so far away,
my options for getting home are limited, and needing to wake up at 6 AM to come
back into the city the day after. As it
is, I’m lucky to be home by 1 AM after Power, and by the time the show is over
– a show that has run past midnight on more than one occasion – I’m pretty
burned out and don’t feel social.
Not feeling social, I think that’s my biggest problem. I don’t feel social most of the time. There are clubs I go to – and I should note
here that I rarely go to clubs if I’m not on the lineup – where I never feel
social. I show up, I don’t talk to
anyone, I play Candy Crush if no one’s looking, I do my set and leave. I’m uncomfortable the entire time I’m there,
because I feel like I should be talking to someone, but don’t know what to say.
(For God’s sake, I’ve covered being socially retarded before
too. This blog is getting repetitive.)
ANYWAY. What I’m
trying to say is, if I am giving people the impression that I’m a cold prick,
it would be a good idea to stop acting like a cold prick.
