Today I went to a comedy show by FairBairn Films. It was a hilarious show and I was laughing out loud all night. I’m glad I went. Even though I went alone.
An interesting sentiment I remember hearing when growing up watching Off the Great Wall as a kid was Mike Chen saying that one of the tests for how comfortable you are with yourself is being able to eat out by yourself. To sit down in a restaurant and have a meal with just yourself. I’ve never found this to be particularly challenging, and since moving out of my parent’s basement, I found myself eating out a lot, sometimes by myself. Perhaps I would find it daunting to book a nice and fancy restaurant for only myself but a regular Chinese restaurant? No problem.
I’ve done many things that have at least started with just me trying something out. When I first moved interstate to Melbourne, I didn’t have any friends so I needed to make some friends somehow. I decided to go to some Meetups which are just public events that anyone can go to.
One of the first ones I went to was a meetup where people just met up at the Botanical Gardens and talked to strangers. I was really nervous, but I am quite good at forcing myself to do things that I think that I have to do. It was quite awkward and I didn’t make any long term friends from that but I didn’t get incredibly embarrassed and it was good to grease the wheels of the social engine after a long period of isolation during COVID19.
But that’s an example of when I go by myself and I end up meeting people. Sometimes I also like having days to myself, like visiting another suburb just to eat some legendary chicken nuggets. I’ve attended some concerts by myself as well. Recently, I went all in on buying tickets to all three aespa shows in Australia and understandably, none of my friends wanted to fly to Sydney to watch the same concert twice.
But, it’s because I decided to fly out to Sydney that I was able to catch a flight with one of my favourite idols. I was also able to find out that an acquaintance also flew to Sydney to watch the concert and now we are planning to catch up. These are the stories that I wouldn’t be able to hear or tell if I limited myself to whatever I could drag my friends to.
Back to the present, I attended a comedy show tonight and it was an amazing experience. I laughed a lot. I went alone and when I was seated at the table I was a bit intimidated because there were three strangers already sitting down. I was minding my own business waiting for the show to start when someone called out my name. It was someone I had met and helped out at my previous company. She had just been seated at the same table as me. What a crazy coincidence. There were over 50 tables to be assigned, and we ended up getting assigned to the same table because we decided to arrive at the comedy show at around the same time. One of the things that I am grateful for is that I am generally speaking, quite social, and I have made these connections that can manifest in the most random ways.
We chatted for a bit before the show started and I had a great night. Even though I started alone, I ended up meeting someone I knew, and we enjoyed a nice night of comedy together.