LAUGH! LAUGH! LAUGH!!!!!
Richard Dennis
Professional Simplifier. Leaders lead. Streamline your Healthcare business/interests. Maximize return on your time & $. Natural health solutions. Income boost. Team-building. Simple execution. Major impact. I hate waste.
1966. Spring term of my freshman year at University of Oregon, taking a theater class required for my Journalism major. First day in class, I see 25 beautiful girls. Hot, hot, hot. Some are freshmen, most are upperclassmen.
There's just one other guy, taking the class with his girlfriend. I hadn't seen him in any journalism classes. He's probably in theater class just to protect his interest.
Twenty-five beautiful girls sounds pretty good, right? But I was intimidated. Talking with girls was tough for me. I liked them, all right. I just sucked at talking to them.
But this was the perfect set-up. No competition. Go at my own speed. Think of something cute to say to one of these girls, hopefully start a relationship. Just do it right, and it had the potential to work really well.
So first thing, the Professor divides us into groups of 6. My group is the first to go onstage. Me and 5 girls. I'm last in line. Professor seats himself way up in the balcony so he can see everything. He booms his voice down at the first girl, "OK. LAUGH!" She does. He commands Girl #2, "LAUGH!" And SHE laughs.
Uh-oh.
I begin to feel a serious problem coming like a freight train, 15 seconds away from smashing me to bits.
He moves on down the line. All 5 girls perform. My turn.
I cannot laugh. How can you laugh on command? Ridiculous! I love to laugh. But when he commanded me to laugh, I stood there THINKING about how to laugh. I just needed a bit more time to come up with some plan of how to laugh.
EXACTLY what an introvert would do.
I could not laugh to save my life. And then it got worse. These 5 beautiful girls on stage felt sorry for me. They tried to coach me how to laugh. And then I completely humiliated myself, because I couldn't even be coached.
The Professor finally gave up and called the next group to the stage. I disappeared. Terrible, awful, no-good, very bad day.
Where is that professor now? NOW I can laugh!
And the irony - I did eventually date one of those girls - the one who took the class with her boyfriend. So apparently, despite my own insanity, I was only the SECOND biggest horse's ass in that class.
#theatre #introvert #nogoodverybadday #failure #funny