About a month ago, I came across the comedian on Coffee meets bagel. We shared the same weirdo sense of taste in movies/TV and immediately hit it off. We exchanged messages for a few days and he invited me to one of his shows – his second last show, before he was due to fly back home overseas.
Seeing as there wasn’t any possibility for anything long term (as he’s based overseas) I figured, why the hell not? I’d been so out of practice in the dating arena having just come out of a long term relationship, that I thought it’ll just be good as practice – getting to know someone new. No pressure, just hanging out with someone new, yeah?
So the plan was to see his show at 7pm, meet up for a bite/drink afterwards and catch another show later on. As the lights dimmed and his story unfolded, the more excited I got to meet him afterwards. Sipping on my cider, his skit was actually laugh out loud worthy, highly enjoyable wondering how much of the material based on his family and (sad) love life was actually true, with the crowd really getting into it too.
When his show drew to a close and the lights turned bright once more, a line of people hurriedly got up from their seats and waited patiently in line near the exit to take a photo with him. I couldn’t help but smirk a bit as I walked past the line, especially when I had previously joked that he’d be mobbed by his adoring fans afterwards and he (humble bragged) that it wouldn’t happen. So when it finally came to meeting him (after he had taken pictures with all his adoring fans), I had expected the same exuberant and funny self, but instead, I was face to face with a much shyer and quieter guy.
We ubered to The Gretz and as we sat down, looking at the menu, he mentioned he doesn’t drink…
Okaaaaay, let’s pull myself together. I can deal with 1 time not drinking and socialising sober right?!
As the realisation sunk in, I had the feeling that I’d have to be the one working hard to get the conversation going, seeing as he was so painfully shy. Was it first meeting nerves? Did one even classify this as a date, as we both knew this would be a 1 time only thing with no prospect of anything longer term seeing as he’s based overseas? He wasn’t hungry because he had eaten before. Lame. So I ordered a quick bite and 2x lemon, lime and bitters(!) I asked about his skit and surprisingly a lot of the material was true with hardly any embellishment including the part where he had got a hotel room, decked it out in flowers and other decorations only to have his new girlfriend say she felt totally uncomfortable and asked to be driven home. The conversation went gluggily back and forth, covering the usual first date/meeting?hangout? type (interview) questions: Where are you from? What do you do? Where do you get inspiration from? How long are you in Sydney for? Blah blah blah, the usual and unfortunate small talk everyone has to go through to build “rapport” which eventually leads to the way more interesting Big talk stuff. Bleh. But of course, since this was just a 1 time hangout, we never actually got there….
Before we met up, he mentioned that he wanted to check out another show later that night, for research purposes. There was an absurdist comedian and he was super curious to see what she’d get up to. So we went back to the venue and holy shit was this comedian weird.
She began her skit pretty much immediately with the lights still on as people were still filing in and getting into their seats. She was lying ‘seductively’ on her side on the stage, making everyone who was coming in uncomfortable by singling out physical characteristics, asking if duos were on a date, and generally being creepy AF. Then without warning, more randomness ensued, including sporadically drinking from (and eventually getting a lady in the audience (her friend maybe?)) to drink/skull? the remaining glass of a fizzy tablet meant for urinary tract infections (UTIs), whilst a large proportion of her remaining skit consisted of her breaking out into an off-tune song complete with a fake monster made up of red and white bike light eyes and mouth, launching out of a black bum bag she wore around her waist whilst the “monster” spewed out lines pretending it was your mother.
The actual drinking of the UTI drink probably wasn’t quite as dramatic as Elaine here, but maybe my mind is now so damaged by the whole “performance” and can’t really recall the events clearly anymore, so that this is now the new reality.
When the weird ass skit was finally over, I felt super relieved the first thing he said was: that was fucking weird, wasn’t it? Laughing as we exited the venue, I was secretly relieved when he shared he promised to catch up with some friends, before flying home tomorrow afternoon making this pretty much the end of our hangout together (and luckily he didn’t extend the invite). He was heading back to his Air BnB before heading out again and insisted on catching a bus “like a local.” In hindsight, I’m not sure why I took the bus with him too and didn’t just jump into an Uber to end the night and cut short my flailing attempts at extracting conversation from him.
The bus pulled up at his stop with a lurch and we parted ways with an awkward wave goodbye. Ha! On my way home, I couldn’t help but think how starkly different his on-stage persona and online self whilst messaging was compared to his normal regular self. I actually asked him about this and he said: it’s too tiring to be that person all the time, that’s just another facet of my personality.’
Although the Comedian didn’t turn out to be my “true love”, at least my original true love, Pizza, feels safe, knowing it’s still #1 in my heart <3.
