people i interact with at open mics

I've been trying to go to more open mics lately because I have a lot of free time right now and I should be taking better advantage of it. Going out more has made me noticed there are generally three kinds of people I interact with at open mics (or don't). I'm going to break it down in a list because lists are fun and easy to do. And these are generalizations and probably vague descriptions and if you're a comedian friend I encourage you to try and figure out what category you're in (or don't).

1. People I'd like to talk to, but don't
These are mostly people who have been doing this comedy thing a lot longer than I have and are more "legitimate." I only want to talk to them if they're people I find funny though. Sometimes I'll say hello to these people or even a few more words than hello... sometimes these people will even say "good set" to me and I'll wonder if they mean it or if they're just being nice to a lowly noob open mic comic such as myself. I'm wracked with insecurity. It just want to be liked! But I get nervous talking to most people and I'm easily intimidated.

2. People I truly enjoy talking to
These are people with whom I've had real actual conversations in real life (and probably on facebook too). People I like. People I feel comfortable talking to outside comedy shows and open mics. People with whom I have stuff in common beside doing comedy things sometimes. People with whom I can talk about actual life stuff if I want to. Or not. (There's actually a lot of gray area between these three categories now that I think about it.) There are more people I kind of am comfortable talking to than people I truly enjoy talking to. (Why did I start out ending with a preposition and then try to not to that and then just go right back to it? Am I trying to prove to you that I went to college? I minored in Linguistics so I could totally draw a grammar tree showing that it's permissible to end a sentence with a preposition if you want to.)

3. People I really don't want to talk to
These are usually new open mikers and they are usually drunk and nervous. It's not that I don't want to impart my limited wisdom ("Whatever, man, just have fun with it. And stop drinking.") Sometimes these are just regular drunk people and sometimes they are hitting on me (I think?) or just getting in the way of me talking to people in category two. I don't really enjoy talking to drunk people. Unless I'm drunk, in which case I'll talk to everyone. But I try not to be drunk at open mics.


This list is probably over-simplified and incomplete.