Improv intro
I brought a date to meet my friends. It did not go as planned.
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It seemed like a foolproof plan. My friend was having an improv show, and I was bringing the pharmacist. Our unlikely coffee date had turned into late-night dance parties in the kitchen and coffee in the morning, and we had both switched off Bumble. The show felt like a low-key, low-stakes way for him to meet my friends.
Still, I was nervous. It was my first time bringing a date since my breakup. I had been one of the first to marry in my 20s and was the first to divorce at 39. For the last three years, I’d shown up solo in a world of couples and taken the single bed on group trips. I had needed the time alone to regroup but was growing ready to hold someone’s hand.
So when the improv invite went out, I held my breath and invited the pharmacist—and then panicked for the next week. Worries looped in my head like startled pigeons. What if my friends don’t like him? What if he’s too like my ex? What if I’m making the same mistakes again? I’d gone so wrong in love before. I needed to do dating right.
My friends attempted to talk me off my overthinking ledge. It was a great plan, they reassured me. A comedy show was an easy way for him to dip his toes into the friend pool. They promised solemnly not to grill him. They told me not to overthink it, to just have fun and go with the flow.
To state the obvious, I’m not really a go-with-the-flow kind of person. I’m a what-time-does-the-flow-start-and-can-I-get-an-agenda kind of person. I want to know the direction of the flow and when we will arrive so I can pack enough snacks. But maybe my friends were right and this would be the perfect setting for an unobtrusive intro.
The pharmacist couldn’t make the show itself, so he’d meet us for drinks afterwards. My friends and I settled into our seats, saving one for a friend running late, and the lights went down. The improv group started calling for volunteers. The show’s premise was taking a “problem” from the audience “solving” it through the power of improvised musical theatre.
I spotted the late friend, struggling to find his seat in the gloom. I waved to get his attention. Unfortunately, it also caught the cast’s attention.
“You in the back, stand up!” they boomed. “Do you have a problem for us to solve?”
“Oh nononononono,” I said, signaling frantically that I was just flagging my friend, not volunteering. Hell would freeze first.
Mistaking my flailing for enthusiasm, they refused to take no for an answer and demanded I provide a problem. The audience was waiting. I froze like a deer in improv headlights, heart pounding, mind blank. The only answer I could grasp was the truth.
“Um, I’m introducing a new man to my friends and I’m nervous about it,” I heard myself say.
“And why are you nervous about it?” the cast pressed, fishing for comedic material.
Great question! I’d been overthinking this all week. I shuffled frantically through my stack of unsatisfying answers: Because this is the first time I’ve dated seriously since my divorce? Because half of this theatre is friends with my ex? Because I struggle to trust steady affection? Because I’m scared to get hurt in the same way again?
“Because it’s been a while,” I finally managed to say out loud, and then dropped back into my seat, face aflame. That seemed banal enough. Surely they would move on.
“Let us then solve the problem of Liz, who is nervous about introducing her new man to her friends!” the cast boomed, declaring my nascent love life the theme of the hour.
“I’m going to kill you,” I hissed to my late friend, who was appropriately chagrined.
“You’re not going to believe this,” I texted the pharmacist, who was on his way to meet us.
The show began, and I was the star. Improv Liz worried about finding love. She envied friends in seemingly perfect marriages. She went on a series of disappointed dates and tolerated too many jerks. When she finally met a good man, she worried about introducing him. “What if they don’t like him?” she sang. “Or what if they like him more than me?”
I cackled and cringed in recognition. It was hilariously funny—and excruciatingly true. It was just so relatable: the desire for love and self-doubt, the chance meetings and self-inflicted detours. It was relatable because it was my story. It was relatable because the story of anyone who has ever dated as an adult, anyone who has taken a chance on finding love again after being hurt.
The show ended with Improv Liz and her new man getting the blessing of her friends, with a rousing chorus of, “We approve of him! We think he’s great!” After the finale, the actors summoned me reluctantly back into the spotlight and asked if they had “solved” my problem.
“Oh yes,” I managed, doubled over laughing. “Now I’m not nervous at all!”
My friends and I filed out of the theatre, discussing the deliciousness of the joke. So much for a low-key intro. Fifty people were now invested in how this was going to go. The pharmacist was waiting in the lobby, listening to the speculation with a smile.
“Everyone, meet P.,” I said, to howls of laughter. “P., meet… everyone.”
It was impossible not to enjoy the absurdity of the situation, at the fun the universe is having with my attempts to control my dating life. The pharmacist and I laughed and chatted with my friends, and they did approve of him, as much as you can judge someone’s character over beers at a bar. He seems wonderful, they said, and very kind.
I was glad to hear it—and I realized that wasn’t the point. I was nervous because introducing him took this new thing between us out of the shiny bubble of early romance and into the real world. We had crossed an invisible threshold of vulnerability. I was opening myself back up to caring for someone and everything that came with it.
I wanted my friends to tell me: Yes, he’s right for you, this will not go wrong. But their approval was not a magic spell to ward off future heartbreak. They could not promise that I would not make mistakes, that I would always do dating right. Two people can do their best to love each other and still let each other down in profound ways. I couldn’t set a perfect agenda for intimacy. All I could do was take a deep breath and go with the flow.
One of the unexpected joys of starting over has been hearing from others on similar journeys. If something resonates with you, I’d love for you to leave a comment, drop me an email or share a post with a friend!
Liz is a writer and photographer based in Brooklyn. Improv clips by the very talented Contessa improv group, performing “The Court of Private Opinion,” at the Magnet Theater.
I haven't started the new relationship thing yet. It's too early and too raw yet. I'm an older man of 67. For me meeting friends would not be the issue. Meeting my adult children and grandkids seems terrifying. Also, in the reverse. Meeting her family. But, I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Thanks for the humor in your post. I find it very encouraging.
This line made me say out loud "So true!"
- I wanted my friends to tell me: Yes, he’s right for you, this will not go wrong. But their approval was not a magic spell to ward off future heartbreak. -
I remember the two men I dated after the major heartbreak. I had them meet my barometer friend from this place of 'tell me I've got it right that they wont hurt me'. I learnt if I was having to ask then my own barometer was likely off, that I was in some way not being myself in those relationships which after 15 years with the same person was bound to happen. All I know is that once I met my fiance there was no 'tell me its right', no texts to friends about aspects of our interactions, no gathering of opinion - and that wasn't entirely because he was so easy to trust but much more to do with how much trust I had built in myself.