When Douchebags Strike

This will not be artistic.  This will not be elegant.  This is the simple act of venting.

I love being a performer and a storyteller.  The adrenaline rush, the connection with people, the improvising of details so they may be tailor-fitted to a specific crowd; I love it all.  But no job is perfect.  With all pleasure comes vicious and intense pain.  There are blase' crowds, poor tippers and uncomfortable work conditions.  Those are all irritating but familiar.  It's only every once in a while that a performer gets to have in their crowd a troller, a heckler, a much dreaded and much heard of bona fide douchebag. 

Ah, the douchebag!  These are people who have difficulty behaving like adults when the focus isn't on them because they don't know how to use their big-boy manners.  Douchebags are under the impression that they are funny.  Douchebags try to make make their lives seem less sad, empty and loveless by bringing down the person who is trying to perform for a living. 

To all the douchebags out there: You are NOT entertaining, cute or clever.  If people laugh at your jokes, it's only because you have succeeded in making the atmosphere so thick with tension that they have to titter nervously to break out of the thick vat of awkward you have created. 

I try to be gracious when I am bestowed with such a douchebag.  I usually disarm them by acting like I don't hear them or their little comments.  And I do not EVER under any circumstances get angry- this gives the douchebag all of the power and focus which is what he wants to begin with.  They are after all, just children masquerading as men.  I look directly into their vain, shallow eyes and smile. 

Unless they call me sweetheart.

To all douchebags out there:  I am not your sweetheart. 

Go ahead, ignore me and text on your phone, loudly talk to your friends, roll your eyes, make faces at the crowd, mimic me and show the world what a childish, arrogant clown you are.  Although you are vehemently loathed, you are also pitied. 

It comforts me to know that while I am warm and comfortable in my lovely home, the douchebag I encountered tonight is alone with only his overcompensating ego to hold him and keep him warm all through the long and cold night. 

In all honesty, I look forward to the day that our paths may cross once again.  I will smile, shake his hand and tell him there are no hard feelings, sweetheart.


Until next time,

~Story Siren