I wanted to be a stand-up comic for about three weeks in college

I wrote a whole five minute set and practiced it in my dorm room, convinced my jokes about the campus food were gold. My big moment came at a tiny open mic night at a coffee shop called The Grind. I got up, told my first joke, and heard one person cough. Halfway through, a guy in the front just said 'dude, you're yelling.' I was so nervous I'd been basically shouting every punchline. That was the exact second I knew it wasn't for me. I finished the set, but my voice was shot. Has anyone else had a goal die from something that simple and silly?

4 comments

4 Comments

rose_reed2mo ago

That open mic story is so real. I tried to learn guitar to impress a girl in my sophomore year. Bought a cheap acoustic, practiced the opening to "Wonderwall" for a month straight. My big play was to casually play it when she came over to study. I got three notes in and she just started laughing, not in a mean way, but because my face was so tense and serious. The dream died right there on my dorm room floor. What was the one joke in your set you were most sure would kill?

wesley_jones2mo ago

I used to think my joke about dating apps was bulletproof, but @rose_reed, your story proves real life is always funnier.

diana6172mo agoTop Commenter

My friend Liam spent two weeks building a perfect dating profile for his cat, just to show me how silly the whole thing was. He wrote this really serious bio about enjoying long naps and laser pointers, used the most dignified photos. @rose_reed, your "Wonderwall" face is exactly the look he had when a woman actually matched with the profile to ask about the cat's hobbies. The whole bit fell apart because he had to admit he was a 30 year old man pretending to be a tabby.

karen36122d ago

I read this article the other day about how people are creating FAKE profiles for their pets on dating apps just to mess around. It said something like 1 in 10 dating profiles are actually just people being ironic or testing the system. Your friend Liam is basically a case study in that. The fact that someone matched with a CAT and wanted to know its hobbies is just proof that dating apps have jumped the shark. People are so desperate for real connection they'll swipe right on a tabby named Mittens.