LogFAQs > #896175615

So this week a friend from out of town was visiting. He is now a stand up comic. I asked if he wanted to hang out with me and our mutual friend and we picked tonight. He says let's go to this improv comedy club and watch a show, we say sounds good.

So the other guy and I get there on time and he's half an hour late so we're already eating when he arrives. It's whatever and we talk for half an hour before the show. It's not an improv show though, it's a show for stand up comics to tell emotional stories. The theme this month is New Beginnings. Everyone in the room besides me and other guy seems to be a stand up comic. They're so supportive of each other and they're all each other's best friend. My stand up friend says the show will last an hour.

First guy up is the emcee. He tells a nice story about how he came to visit St. Louis as a boy and then move here as a man. Not haha funny but sweet and amusing. Next one up is a tiny lady who tells a not at all funny story about how she almost got married. I thought it was lovely and poignant and thoughtful. I'm like ok this is fine, there'll be five or six of these stories then we'll just go back to the bar.

I lost count but I'm thinking there were at least 12 stories. It took two and a half hours. After the first two stories also they got progressively worse (though the last guy seemed ok but I could barely keep my eyes open) and the whole time all the stand up friends are laughing their heads off. It's insane and I'm feeling bad about not laughing at all but I don't even know how to fake laugh at it because it's so unfunny and it seems like they're not even trying to be funny outside of this one guy who kept making LotR analogies that didn't make sense. Also at least half of the "New Beginnings" were about how they started doing standup.

The worst part was when this dude who I would have guessed had never even spoken in front of a classroom starts telling the legend of how he came back from standup retirement. He starts off "when I first did standup it was right out of high school, so 2011." And I get so mad because he's talking about how he unretired from his hobby and he's fucking 25 years old. But it gets worse: the legend of how he knew he was good at it was that after David Bowie died he did a David Bowie impression at an open mic. Ok. He proceeds to tell us about how good an impression it was. He said everyone cheered and the wait staff said it was really something special (note: this may actually be true because non standup friend and I both agree that he seemed to be on the spectrum). It was the best Bowie impression of all time. He didn't do it though. We're just taking it on faith. Then he goes "I've made a lot of friends in standup. Well... I like them but I don't know if they like me..." And then paused until a lady from earlier said "we love you!" from the crowd. And after the show he was talking to her at the bar and as I'm trying to close my tab she starts talking to me about the show as the dude is talking to her. Like oh you're here with Tom right blah blah blah. And the guy is like just staring daggers at me as I barely talk to this married mother of two. Also her story was about how she's always been awkwardly tall. She's probably 5'9"