Blurred Lines

Tags: amateur comedians, comedy writing, dating, relationships, The Stand-Up Diaries, trevor dean, Trevor Dean comedian

Being in comedy for a couple years now, and being far from perfect, I can understand to a degree the types of things that a comic must deal with, the mental or emotional issues they have in their life, use that to fuel their creative process and get laughs on stage. Then once the laughs subside, they need the instant gratification for the rest of the day when they aren’t on stage.  They need that approval, admiration and laughs all day long.

When you get home after your stage time and sit around your house and that loving, accepted feeling you got from the audience isn’t the same one to greet you at home, then you find ways to duplicate that feeling.  Sometimes it means that you act in ways you know don’t line up with what your values are, it’s not how you were raised, but sometimes even though you know better old habits are difficult ones to break whether it be freeing yourself from pornography, alcohol, drugs, abuse or a combination thereof.

I am pretty fortunate as I am not suicidal, I have amazingly wonderful and supportive friends, and I am slowly building a consistent pattern of normalcy in the day-to-day living of looking after myself.  Hey, it beats being homeless, right?

For anybody who knows me well, the one area I have struggled with most of my life, that I make multiple references to in my act, is that i don’t feel like I am worthy.  I don’t feel I am worthy of success, material things or love.  Ah yes, dating.

First I was adopted, but that never really affected my psyche in any way as I had a decent childhood growing up.  Got picked on more than my fair share, played on sports teams that lost every game, and depending on the day I was either one of the popular and well-liked kids in class, or I was the one that got picked on and bullied endlessly.

Throughout high school the first three years were much the same, no wait.  Make that the first 2.5 years.  Then I started to get recognized on my own merits after I drew the proverbial line in the sand which nobody dared to cross.

Then came adulthood and living on my own.  I had job after job, after job after job that didn’t work out because it was a dead-end job, I was being bullied or disrespected or screwed over by my employer, sometimes I even managed to screw up decent jobs entirely on my own.  Kind of like a person who moves from one negative situation (relationship) to another, when life beats you down enough your guard is either up way too high or the walls are crumbling down around you and you suddenly aren’t in a position to make clear, concise decisions based on your environment.

That’s kind of what happens to me in the dating world.  For years now I have been on dating sites, and if I wrote every site down that I have been a part of, I’d probably be one of the very few who would openly admit to being on so many.

With me I was never in a good place within myself, yet I felt that it was the best time for me to try and find a girl to date.  I would make sure that I write the most thought-provoking, moving profile imaginable to try and get somebody’s attention that I thought might be a good match for me.

What I found however, is that the ladies reading my profile weren’t having any of it. I was rudely told off, ignored, and blocked.  Most of my nights are spent trying to figure out from a picture, from a few words written, what type of person they could become.  Most often though I get that assumption 100% wrong.  The world we live in today has made dating very complicated, prideful, egotistical and hurtful.  People today are dishonest, disrespectful and treat the opposite sex like they are flipping through the pages of a catalogue.  If something doesn’t catch your eye on one page, you can always turn the page to indulge in the possibility of finding something new.  That something new may not be to your liking, it might even be something old, but the mere thought of turning that page to look sometimes is a tough thing to stop yourself from doing.

With me, options 97% of the time fizzle out before they ever get started, for a multitude of reasons.  But now that I am in a much better place within, one that I have never experienced before, I am attracting the attention of ladies, this time ones of quality.  The ones where I am able to be the best version of myself to really let my true light shine, or so I think.

The real possibility could exist down the road that I could enter into a relationship, or at the very least begin seeing somebody.  I was prepared to make that decision a while back and got burned.  That was the first time the “new” Trevor had to deal with that type of setback, and it didn’t bother me as much as I would have thought.

I think some comics probably begin to believe what they write about themselves, about the struggles and never getting it right. They spend the time writing about how they don’t measure up, they practice saying it, then they deliver the material on stage and get laughs, then that good feeling they got when they left the comedy stage evaporates when they get home, once they sit down and realize that if the audience laughed at my struggles, I have to come up with some new ones.

I am in that category, there’s no doubt about it.  It’s not difficult for me to think like that because I have always had the short end of the stick for a good chunk of my life so it doesn’t take a lot of effort to be able to get into that mindset to create comedy.  Now, if I did start seeing someone or dating exclusively, what would that mean for the creative process?

I honestly think that it would help the relationship of the person I would be involved with.  It would unlock happiness and new material that I would enjoy doing, because let’s face it.  I’d rather do material about struggles within a happy relationship rather than talk about the struggles of being single and alone.

The difficult part though, is letting go of the learned behaviours of the past.  I guess the other part is that I have never been in a position before to accept a healthy relationship that would find me in a good place.  I am 41 years old now, life isn’t getting any easier for me.  It’s more challenging, and more fun too, at times.  When you’ve been burned enough times that you can’t see what type of woman you can attract, let alone the type that will attract you to them, it makes it difficult to give it the focus it deserves when your judgments are clouded from the wrong choices made in the past.

So, I guess what I am saying is that comics are human too.  They go through the same struggles that we all face in life, the only difference being they play their struggles and insecurities out on stage for all to see.  I know I am capable of handling a relationship and I certainly am capable of getting good material from it too.

Comedians are a bit needy in the sense that some need to be liked or loved, they need the approval.  One audience member loving or approving of them isn’t enough, they have to seek that approval from everyone.  Once the stage lights die down at the end of the night, they self-indulge in things that they shouldn’t with different people to replicate that feeling whether it be sex, drugs, violence, alcohol or worse.

As you can see, my dating life is blurred because my life is blurred somewhat, meaning my comedy is somewhat blurred too because my comedy is a partial reflection of my life.  The recipe for clearing those blurred lines is time, understanding and practice.

Lots, lots, lots, lots, lots and lots of practice to get it right.

Be blessed!