Page 20 - MN

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Party Animal? Maybe Not.
Years ago my brother, Tim, and I were taking our morning walk to our favorite muffin place in Eugene, Oregon, when he blurted out, "I hate parties".
I was stunned. It never occurred to me that you could hate parties. Everyone loves parties. You get together with friends, drink and talk and dance and everyone has a good time, right? Humans love parties and if you don't, there's something wrong with you. It was at that point I realized there was something wrong with me. I went back over my modus operandi at parties, which was to drink too much, fake being a party animal, talk loudly, say all the wrong things (liquor gives you a wonderful freedom to do that), and when all else failed, find a book and go hide in the bathroom until people force you back out. Damn, I hated parties too! Tim was my party savior!
That being said, why would any sane introvert pick a job where you have to get up in front of lots of people and entertain them? I'll tell you why. Women. When it came to meeting women, being glib and saying slick things, sweeping them off their feet, I batted about .001. I could drive up to a singles bar in a Ferrari, walk in throwing hundred dollar bills, and come out alone. One day I realized that approaching women was not the way to go. The obvious answer was to get them to approach me. The Elvis solution. He had women trying to sleep with him all the time and I thought that was brilliant. I started with a ukulele, moved to banjo (possibly the world's worst chick magnet) and ended up with a 12- string guitar doing comedy songs and stories. Wrong again.
If you're a failed party animal, get an electric guitar and become a lead singer in a rock band. Bang. Women come to you. Yippee! Even bass players get lucky sometimes.
But, and this is a huge but, I'm not sure there is such a thing as comedy groupies. I'm sure the big stars--Dave Chappel, Chris Rock, Bill Burr--have no problem finding women, and I can also say that playing guitar and working bars was a giant step up for me. It bumped my average up to at least .200. In a world of studs, I was a utility infielder. And every time I'd meet a woman it would be in the last day or two of a gig and I'd have to leave town. So the wild entertainer life I dreamed of didn't quite pan out.