Behind My Back?

Greetings all,

Since I've been doing stand up in Toronto, I am starting to get to know the regular up and coming comics who do the open mics to get their experience. One girl who is probably a few years younger then me is a little weird and her act is quite awful. I don't think she realizes how bad she is. I know I'm not that good and need polishing but I at least have some self awareness of what I am doing on stage. I wonder with this girl.

Since she's a little weird, I asked other comics what they thought of her and we all seem to agree that she is weird. At my show last night, the girl was there and other comics were starting to talk about her. I find that if someone is weird, people seem to chuckle when things from their past come up. Someone was commenting on the photos she did when she was younger as she did some modeling.

I started to wonder if these people would talk about me behind my back. I know I'm weird and I don't care. I accept my quirks.

People weren't being mean when talking about this girl but when they talk to her, they act all nice. It always bothers me to see people being nice to others after having witnessed them talking about them.

When I talked about her to others, I wanted confirmation that she really was weird and it wasn't just my imagination. I guess the people from last night weren't being mean but I always feel weird to witness someone being nice to someone when they were earlier on talking about them.

How else are you to handle weird people anyways? You have to be polite to them anyways. Why be mean to their face when you can be mean behind their backs?
It's not my style to be mean behind someone's back but if I notice things that aren't 'right' or they are acting out of line, I have to say something! I only talked about her to exchange information. I find there is a fine line between gathering information about people and gossiping. I try and get information on people and I am not into gossip and getting off on people's misfortune.

This girl was chatting to me yesterday and I was understanding her to some degree. I am a little sympathetic to weird people so I would listen to her to some degree (she didn't make much sense at least half the time). She did seem like she was trying to fit in and be nice and friendly towards others (she may have been trying too hard and that can work against you if you try too hard to fit in) so it's hard for me to be judgmental towards her. And I am a fairly compassionate person so people who are outcasts, I usually try to understand them.

Depending on the situation, I can be slow to open up to people and I find that I am now starting to open up a bit with the other comics. Maybe they do think I'm weird since I've been pretty quiet.

At least once they start to get to know me, they will realize that I am weird anyways!