Tough dating town

The date went ok yesterday. She's pretty, smart and VERY funny and expressive. It seemed to be going ok, as well, until towards the end, I suggested we get together for a friends' art show and display. She said she had a party that day, also. Then, unsolicited, she said that next week was pretty busy for her.

A definite brush-off.

I woke up this morning and wrote her a typical post-mortem thank-you email with a slight 'test the water' aspect to it. She wrote back and I responded. I tried to be funny and non-chalant about the whole thing, in my emails, sort of reminding her of my qualities while making it clear that there'd be no pressure or awkwardness involved in seeing me. Here they are (the names have been changed to protect the guilty:

Email: Schmoozapalooza

10:56 am (1 hour ago)

Hey there,

Just wanted to write and thank you for a really nice (albeit brief) evening. You're lovely company and very, very funny. I'm sure you're going to charm the pants off those guys on Saturdays (or charm their wallets out of their pockets, I should say).

Anyways, maybe we could do it again sometime, schedules permitting.

Incidentally, have you ever done stand-up? I think you'd be pretty good at it. I actually dated a stand-up comedian a few months ago and while she was very nice...I never heard her say anything really funny. That became all I could focus on as it became my mission to get her to give me anything with a semblance of wit...a pun...a knock-knock joke, anything. Oddly enough, her show was very funny. My point is, I saw a lot of shows when I was with her and not a lot of people have your flair and relatability. The family alone should be good for a twenty minute bit:)

Quiet day today and I'm a little tired, for some reason. Mimi has this annoying habit of spending the entire night trying to burrow between my arm and my body. Spooning with the dog will exhaust anyone.

Hope all's well at your end.

Reply

11:18 am (1 hour ago)
Hey,

It was great to meet you and get to hang out. I will do my darnedest to charm their wallets out while keeping my pants on.

Lets try for next week I need to get my rehearsal schedule set, which should be on Sunday, then I will be able to figure out what time I have...

I got to watch some of our videoed rehearsals last night, so that was mildly productive at least before I went to bed.

You are not the first person to tell me I should do stand-up but I am pretty sure that what would happen would be the opposite of that girl you dated whereas she was not so funny at home, but funny in her show, I would be funny at home and not in the show. You know they say that comedy comes out of anger... interesting... I had always heard that it came from sadness, which I think is true of Chechov, but for stand-ups they say it is anger...

I hear that you can make a full time career out of dog spooning. It's even more profitable than dog psychic.. which is hard to beat I think

Talk to you soon!

S.

- Show quoted text -

11:40 am (39 minutes ago)
Well, unless Chekov spent his Saturday nights at Gotham or the Improv, literature is a more natural medium for sadness-based humor, more so than stand-up. Stand-up lends itself to anger because it's a much more direct link to the audience. It's like seeing somebody losing their shit on the subway...public anger is just a comedy goldmine.

Also, I think just the exhiliration of being on stage in that setting would be a nice experience. By the way, have you seen the Aristocrats? Well worth seeing as a study of how humor works to shock (and awe) us. Also, I saw Borat last week and it is organ-shutdown funny. It's wrong, on a plethora of levels, but god did I almost die laughing.

Hmmmm...I can see a whole line of videos flooding the market now, starring me and Mimi. Unfortunately, I promised my grandmother on her deathbed that I would never get caught up in bestiality. Again.

M.

See what I mean about trying too hard? It's like I'm drowning and grasping for straws. There's no telling what's going to happen now. I hate being in this position where I feel like I have to flaunt my good points and, to be fair, I've resisted this so far. In the emails, however, I do try and be funny whereas usually, I'm funniest when I don't try.

Oh well, I can't affect someone's attraction to me (or lack, thereof) and I've learnt this, so I'm pretty sure that as the day goes on, I'm going to lose all this 'she likes me/ she likes me not' fretting. New York's a tough town to meet quality people, especially women who are attractive, funny, down-to-earth and around my age, which raises the stakes on every encounter you have. The key thing is, I know I have plenty going on even were it not to work out, so that makes things easier to deal with. The same could not have been said as recently as four years ago.