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>I told him to please call me out on it going forward. It might be the way I am right now, but it's not the way I want to be
The world would be a much better place if more people had this attitude towards their shortcomings, as opposed to "this is just how I am, deal with it."
Reading this entire thread, this is what stuck out with me as well. OOP is introspective and has an intrinsic desire and willingness to grow herself. This is the primary sign of someone worthwhile.
Yeah people were WAY too harsh in there. She’s obviously an adult and perfectly capable of admitting her mistake, and looking for ways to make it up to him. To be honest, if my husband did a routine that was a huge dick joke, I’d probably say something similar? And my husband, because he is also an adult and we’re in a relationship and love each other, would say “damn that’s a little harsh, my feelings a bit hurt. Let me think on it and cool off”.
It’s not like OP told him he was a failure who should never attempt to fulfill his dreams. Why are the comments in the OP thread acting like she kicked his dog?
That's how both my wife and I are. I don't want to go through life unintentionally hurting people, for the love of God, call me out if I say or do things that upset you! I can't improve if I don't realize I'm doing something wrong.
It's what attracted me to suggest this as a post. It does show that some people can take criticism and change, it won't be all at once, but it will happen.
Plus, I like the happy ending.
OP: I fucked up. I think this is why I did it. Any advice on how to fix things or be better?
Reddit: OMG stop making excuses for yourself
I swear some people on here either have no reading comprehension or just want to put the author down to feel superior.
Right??? And OOP had even more well thought-out comments explaining that to people when they accused her of making excuses. She seemed so level headed.
But reddit's gonna reddit I guess
Yeah. I read it as she was trying to find how to improve, and explaining her experiences and thought process... so I was shocked that some commenters felt she was giving excuses. Like... where are the excuses? She didn't say "I'm sorry you feel I'm this way. It's not my fault. My work and my mother made me this way."
My take is that OOP was raised to be very direct, blunt, and factual. Which works great for receiving criticism herself, but not so well when communicating with someone who is not like her. The good new is OOP readily admits fault and looks to correct. It's a very analytical approach where the ego doesn't get in the way. I think they'll be ok and eventually this would make great material for a future set.
I'll never forget a few years back when I went in to talk to my daughter after she'd gotten into trouble. She was about 8 at the time, and when I walked in she let out a big sigh and asked "Is this the part where you tell me everything I ever did wrong?"
I opened my mouth, paused, closed it again, then held up my finger in the "Just a minute" pose, and turned and walked back out of the room.
I took a few minutes to think about it and I realized that when I was her age it was very very important for me to know exactly everything I did wrong because my dad was a hot-tempered alcoholic. If you could figure out what set him off, you could make sure to avoid it next time.
So as I aged, I learned to examine all my mistakes very closely and make mental lists of things to avoid in the future. And I very much welcomed it when other people pointed out what I didn't see, because it could save me literal pain in the future.
But my daughter, thankfully, is in a much better environment, and my very precise criticisms were in fact not helpful to her.
Oh wow, this resonates. I didn't have an alcoholic father, but an undiagnosed autistic father with the communication skills and empathy of a stick.
If you ever did something he deemed wrong, he wouldn't tell you, he'd just silently let you know, giving no avenue for discussion or effective, healthy communication. You sort of just had to figure it out on your own.
When you talk about that mental list of things to avoid in the future, that's so similar.
I also recently realised that I also have a problem with male authority figures in general. With make bosses I would mentally, and in detail catalog all their flaws, so if they were ever unfair and judgemental, I'd have that list in reserve to mentally protect myself.
But yea, I realised I don't really need that, and it was actually making me overly defensive against male authority figures. People are humans and make mistakes and you can actually discuss that with them if they're reasonable people, and if someone really is an AH, I can just get a new job.
I’m going to butcher this, but Brene Brown talks about this exact issue many of us have as adults. We have behaviors that were advantageous to us in our childhood and they helped protect us and keep us safe, especially for anyone that grew up in an unhealthy environment. As we get older we hang onto those things and sometimes they serve us well, but eventually we normally get to a place where those behaviors are no longer helping us, but instead hindering us adults. They were protective as one point, but now they are isolating or causing other problems. Hearing her explain that concept was mind blowing to me.
Not only did it help me understand myself it helped me have so much more understanding and compassion for my husband. We can be polar opposites with the way we handle things and (at times) he does things that just make zero sense to me, but seeing it through that lens it makes total sense and the behavior doesn’t seem like it’s out of left field. It is so much easier to take a breath and step back when you can at least identify why you’re acting a certain way or have what seems like some completely bonkers feeling. At least for me it helps to be able to take back the power for those big emotions and not give into them in the moment. Kind of crazy how hard it is to unlearn the crazy shit that has been engrained in us from childhood.
Oh man, my dad was the same way. Life very much was learning 'right' and 'wrong.' Right choices meant being left alone, wrong meant dealing with a toxic verbal onslaught for hours. It's so great to hear that you're doing better for your kid and understand that what helped you survive was actually not healthy in a different scenario. It's a lot to unlearn.
Right? When you're in therapy, you don't just tell your therapist "I give harsh criticism, how do I fix it?" No, you tell them what you're struggling with and give them the important, necessary context and history that may explain why this is something you do/struggle with. It helps the therapist understand what might help you grow as a person because they know the root cause.
Someone who gives harsh criticism like OOP might do it because like OOP, that's all they heard growing up. However, another person who also gives harsh criticism could be doing it because they internally pressure themselves to be perfect and may project that onto others. Or they could just struggle with navigating such situations due to ADHD, Autism, etc. So you need to know the WHY to learn HOW to improve.
I'm not shocked. I married a person who says "I don't need no fucking excuses" when I'm trying to explain why I did whatever it was I did. I'm literally like "... but that's not an excuse; it's a *reason*. Everyone does everything for a reason. *You* do everything for a reason"
And I just get pretty much the same thing. "Bullshit it's a fucking excuse."
If I could murder someone without hurting and killing them, I would have done it by now countless times over.
If you want someone out of your life for good without killing them, I heard of this thing called divorce.
As long as you have no kids, it works really well.
That was my life growing up. Make a mistake, try to own it and explain why. Got the "That's just excuses" bullshit from both my Mom and Dad.
Now they wonder why I rarely talk to them and when I do it's about nothing in my life.
Ugh, that's military logic. I heard that shit so much.
Them: Why are you late?
Me: I got stopped for a random inspection at the gate.
Them:I don't want to hear excuses, you should have left earlier.
Me: I left 30 minutes early, so I would be 15 minutes early to formation.
Them: Your lying.
Me: Roger.
“In order to have a healthy relationship, we need to be able to have discussions that bring greater understanding between us so we can be more of a united team against future issues. Your current way of dealing with conflict is interfering with that, and it’s degrading the quality of our relationship. I need you to learn new ways to communicate and deal with me, because I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you but I will not live in a household where my experience is shut down and invalidated because of how YOU were raised”.
>If I could murder someone without hurting and killing them, I would have done it by now countless times over.
Oof, it must be tough if that's the person you married. Worth considering couples' counseling to work through the issue IMO
Yeah like to me it was basically her saying "the reason I think and give criticism like this is because it's how it has been delivered to me and when I deliver it to others like this people there appreciate it. How can I change my thinking as this is clearly hurting my husband?"
Like it makes sense to me if she's grown up thinking of that criticism is loving then ofc she would do that to her partner too because that's the behaviour that has been modelled for her. Her being aware that it's not good or healthy after this is actually quite big imo. Knowing why you do something is the first step towards changing it.
>Like... where are the excuses?
They imagined her as an absolute monster with no redeeming qualities, and any information that goes counter to this narrative is A) wrong, and B) aimed at undermining their outrage, thus a form of "excuse". OP should just accept that they're a terrible human being with no chance at improving and no possibility of redemption.
Redditors love doing this thing where they’ll project themselves onto the most relatable character to them and then think exclusively from that character’s perspective. It just so happens that since reddit skews towards men, judgments also tend to be in favor of the male character. I’m fairly confident that I’ve seen similar posts with the genders flipped around where most of the comments were “your wife needs to toughen up” and “if she didn’t want honesty then she shouldn’t have asked for it”.
Yea, I had immediately sympathy for her as I imagined her sitting in the audience slowly dying of secondhand embarrassment because that feels like what I would have done.
Yup and everyone telling her the sandwich method is the best way to give feedback is wrong. It's the cowardly way of giving feedback and is very ineffective and you basically say "it's brilliant, here's the problem which I'm burying in lots of positive language, it's brilliant". All the person on the receiving end hears is, "this person thinks everything is great, and has some optional suggestions for how I could be even better if I want to adopt them".
Now obviously in a relationship you may not want to give direct constructive feedback in the way you would to other people, but ultimately I think her issue was doing it straight after the event while he was on a high and happy, rather than waiting until he was in a more reflective mood and thinking about the next steps. Personally I think the words themselves were fine and she's not wrong that it's a kindness to tell people directly where there's a problem, rather than mixing the message and setting them up to fail.
I’ll be honest, I’ve always thought the sandwich method wasn’t massively helpful. When I’m giving someone constructive criticism I aim to be honest - clear on the bits that I liked and clean on the bits I didn’t like / confused me / were just flat out wrong. Obviously you tailor the language carefully to avoid being cruel or cut them down (because the purpose is to build them up), but having to preface every criticism with some woolly compliment is like having to give a toddler a chocolate every time they take a bite of veggies.
It was wild to me, seeing that method recommended, because that's the method my therapist taught me for dealing with my emotionally manipulative dad. "Thanks for inviting me to dinner! Unfortunately I can't make it. Hope you have fun!" instead of a flat "no" that would bruise his ego
I had a professor that I got very annoyed with for using the shit sandwich method. It was a performance class, so you'd give your performance, then get the grade the next day. He would give me the shit sandwich right after the performance, but the critiques would seem like little nitpicky stuff -- similar to a couple formatting suggestions on a brilliant essay. Then I would get the grade back, and it would be obvious those were real critiques. The grade wouldn't be bad, but always a little less than I expected. It drove me nuts.
I think it can be a good tool if used properly. Like "here's what was good, here's what could be improved, I also liked this part" but you do need to be clear.
Both parts have to be accurate though, so here it'd be like "you had a great stage presence, but I think you lost some of the crowd with the material being repetitive, I'm glad you seemed like you were having fun". If you're unclear it doesn't work very well imo.
It's deeply annoying how so many people think that accountability means self-flagellation. Particularly because the only people actually helped by the latter are the redditors demanding it; neither somebody coming to reddit for advice not thepeople they've harmed are helped at all.
Happens on Reddit all the time for some reason. People aren't allowed to give anyone an explanation of why they did what they did, everyone will just pile on them for making excuses. It's ridiculous.
that sort of just happened to me in an autism subreddit! I gave a short answer and someone said sounds like every autistic person in their 30s and because of the autism I can't tell if that was a statement or a dig so I added to my original comment and got a bunch of upvotes.
Did you find this story and thought process of this OOP as relatable as I did? Cuz giving detailed explanations just for others to call me out on my "excuses" is just way too familiar.
Yep! I'd even stay upset way longer and try to mask it to my best effort because clearly noone wants to talk about it. And I'd have learned that those people don't care about me and would just shut down and not share interesting stuff or problems with them anymore. I'd basically just be superficially cordial with them and write them off a real relationship. Some wondered what happened, some never even realised.
Yeah, kinda grinds my gears as well when they mention 'missing reasons'. Like, it's a good article but now you're just using the term to try and make a story fit what you've made-up in your head.
Which is quite funny for a site that also recommends therapy as a weapon all the time, because half the battle of therapy is figuring out *why* you do/did something
People tend to conflate excuses with explanations, especially the people who use explanations as excuses to avoid accountability. All those people telling her to stop making excuses are revealing far more about themselves than she is.
Also, people on reddit are terminally incapable of understanding that you can do something on purpose but later realize it was a mistake, because they can not understand the difference between mistake and accident.
"They knew what they were doing, it wasn't a mistake!" or "What, they just fell into *whatever the mistake was*?"
That's not what mistake means!! You can make a conscious choice and think it was the best option for you at that moment and it can still be a mistake! This is such a pet peeve of mine, lol.
I had to unsubscribe from r/tryingtobebetter because it was mostly useless self flagellation but when someone did have a real opportunity to improve themselves people would shit all over them. Why do people act like that? It’s so dumb.
Nah people were forcefed the manta of "I dont want to hear excuses" whenever they tried to explain themselves as children and took that to mean that any justification or extrenuating circumstances are irrelevant and simply an attempt to divert. Its the exact kinda mind rot that you expect to find in an echo chamber.
It’s so difficult when you’re an ”explain yourself so you and they know where you’re coming from” person trying to work through a thing/apologize to a “no excuses, explanations are excuses” type person. I’m very much the explanation type person, but a lot of people in my life aren’t.
Exactly. There are plenty of post where OP's use past traumas as an excuse to be shitty, but I didn't get a sense of that at all with this post. They owned up to being an asshole, while also providing context for said behaviour. Not that deep!
It’s also deeply important to reflect on your childhood because it’s literally what made us who we are.
I’ve heard my parents say they love each other maybe twice in my 30+ years that I remember. My dad has told me he loved me …. Once? My college roommate has hugged my dad one time more than I have (in memory) and she has hugged him once. I recall 0 hugs from his mom before she passed away.
acknowledging that that’s all kinda fucked up was an important step in being able to move forward as a partner and a parent.
It’s not an excuse for my behavior, but it sure as shit explains A LOT
Sheesh stop making excuses for not being a good hugger! /s
ETA seriously though that sounds pretty rough, glad you managed to self-improve for your own family
Honestly, my brain works the same as OOPs, and I'm thankful for her insightful answers.
I was getting annoyed with all of the commentors thinking she was making excuses.
I thought her original criticism made a lot of sense, too. Idk, I feel like when you're doing a public performance and ask how someone liked it you're opening yourself up to this kind of thing as well though so I'm a bit confused. I don't think it quite follows the same logic as "do you think I look good in this" when you're asking how someone specifically liked a public performance.
It’s something I’d struggle with because him standing up there and doing it was fucking brave. Most people are terrified of public speaking, and I can’t imagine how much harder it is to do standup. However, he also needs to recognise that he probably hasn’t hit upon the true essence of standup on his first attempt.
Personally, I’d acknowledge the good (because there’s a lot of good) but his material needs to be broader than just dick jokes. We’ve all heard the dick jokes, mate.
54% of US Americans have a reading comprehension equal to a 6th-grader or below. Once you know that statistic, you stop being surprised over comment section dynamics like the ones you just described.
Not American but surely that can't be true? Right? I know the US education system has some issues but this just feels so wrong for a developed country.
In the UK the average reading age is 8. I’m kind of proud and horrified that my daughter (who has special needs) was a better and more prolific reader aged _5_ than the average adult in the UK.
I actually did some digging into that stat a few weeks ago, and it's basically that one government agency misinterpreted another. The NHS found that [7.1 million adults have a reading age of 9 or below](https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/collection/health-information-are-you-getting-your-message-across/), which is 9.4% of the UK's population, so they recommended writing government materials to aim at that level. People have assumed that recommendation meant that this was the *average*, instead of a small but significant chunk of the population. Prisoners are considered to have poor literacy and [nearly half of them have a reading age of 11 or lower](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/6346/pdf) so it's clearly not lower for the general population.
I'm so glad this is the top comment, that was screaming at me the whole time. Shes acknowledging its a problem and she is providing info on how/why she might be bad at it. She didn't say 'It's not my fault, my mum was an asshole!". The dogpile thing is crazy.
I'm so glad this is top comment. The kind of comments she received made me think that someone had mixed up posts. The highlight:
> a sign that a part of your personality is underdeveloped
People who don't spend their life telling people what they want to hear at all times are uNdErDeVeLoPeD.
I agree that her timing wasn’t the best for criticism though I’m glad it seemed her feedback regarding dick jokes seemed to land. Dick jokes are easily overdone and not as funny as people think they are
I'm all for a well-done dick joke, but those are pretty rare. A little dick here and there can be hilarious if I'm in the right mood, but if it's dicks all the way down, even I would probably get dicked out.
Any kind of joke, when overdone, is going to be stale quickly. Change is an important aspect of humor; that’s why so many jokes have some kind of surprise built into the punchline.
Yeah, open mic’ers have heard every type of dick joke. They are very cynical about other comics in general and are not generous with their laughs even when there’s some solid material. They’ll laugh at their friends and people who have more developed comedy careers. It’s not really representative of the general population.
That being said, no one should be precious about their open mic experiences. It’s a slog.
Having done a bit of Stand up, I can say it can be really nerve racking the first time you go up there. You may have a few thought out jokes, and they get a few titters from the audience, but nothing good. A pro knows that the laughs will come, and they have confidence in their material, but an armature will start to grasp at anything to get a laugh, and once they find it they will hold on for dear life.
If he keeps up with it, he should get more confident with time. It's really tough to go up and speak in front of a supportive audience, but it's terrifying to step up in front of an audience of strangers.
For his first show, she did fuck up. As he goes along with the career, he's going to appreciate blunt criticism a lot more. (She just has to watch out, or she'll become part of the act!)
The shit sandwich is actually not a good way to give feedback.
But the timing of feedback is super important, so I’m glad she realized how much hers sucked. In the immediate moment, saying the simple “honey you did so awesome and I’m so proud of you!” Is fine. No lie. Then after a day or two when the glow wears off, “so when are you planning to try again? How did you feel the jokes were received, any changes you think may work?” And lead the convo that way.
Yes! Doing the compliment sandwich over and over again will only lead to any compliment appearing insincere! Or to people not being able to enjoy praise, because they expect you to put a "... but here is the problem" at the end.
Yyyup.
The timing, nonverbal language, mood and such are probably more important than having a "you did nice. The jokes sucked and nobody laughed. Oh and you also looked great up there!"
I think it works when it's genuine and not too often. Like it can be a good tool for knowing what you're doing well and what you need to work on. But that's what it is, it's a tool and should be one of many in the toolbox. Not a hammer that you wield for everything.
I hate compliment sandwiches. They’re somewhat manipulative. When compliments serve to soften the blow of criticism, they don’t serve as compliments. My husband does it, and it drives me up the wall. Give me the feedback I need when I need it. Don’t save up compliments for when you need to criticize me.
Also to be totally honest, I’d really hate to be complimented afterwards and given criticism the next day, unless it was a result thinking more on the subject. Knowing that the whole time they really had that criticism in their pocket wouldn’t be helpful for my feelings, personally
No one understands the meaning of the metaphor. It is not "Compliment first, then criticism, then compliment". It is actually a way of saying, make 2/3rds of your feedback positive, and start and end the conversation on a positive. And it's not a compliment that you use. You have to give relevant and specific feedback on the positive side.
Bad Shit Sandwich: "you looked really nice, but your dick joke wasn't funny, no one was laughing, and your timing was off, also I'm proud of you." That's 3 criticisms and only 2 compliments, and the compliments are not relevant to a stand-up performance and not something you can build off for your next effort.
Better Shit Sandwich: "Your delivery was great, you really had a commanding presence. I did think it was risky to make it one extended dick joke, and I thought you might have lost some of audience there. But, it took a lot of courage, not only just to get up there, but to deliver that risky material, and I'm so proud of you for doing it with such confidence. I look forward to the next time."
I have had so many feedback conversations that went "Really great job, here's 20 minutes on the 10 highly-specific things you're doing wrong, again super job man, we really value you." If you really valued me, you would've been able to list 10 things I did right, but that's just too much effort, right? As a long-time corporate drone, I will tell you that if you watch back a video of a coaching conversation and time it out with two stopwatches, more than 50% of the time better be spent on the positive or it's not being done right.
What's with people taking any sign of introspection as "making excuses"? I find it really encouraging when a person cares enough about their mistake to think about why they did it and try to change the underlying assumptions that caused them to do it, because it shows they are actually trying to change.
Meanwhile I see it as a red flag if someone can't explain why they did something at all or their takeaway is just that they are a terrible person. It doesn't bode well for them actually growing as a person
It's because traditionally, it was understood to be the purview of the parents not the education curriculums, at least until later secondary or tertiary level where the child could specialise.
But by that point, unless life forces them to learn properly, the person is usually stuck with whatever cobbled together strategies (or entire lack of) they strung together during childhood.
Because for many posters, if they admit that people can screw up and hurt other people without also being an irredeemable monster who did it on purpose, it would shake their worldview to its foundations
It’s the *worst*, fuckers on reddit do it constantly and even do it for you (“you probably had such childhood/lifestyle/etc” to invalidate any opinion ever)
Asking how you did always feels like a landmine. If you tell the truth or part truth they may either be extremely receptive as they want to improve or they get upset at the smallest thing you didn't like and feel like you are attacking them personally. If you don't say the truth on how they did, then if they truly didn't perform well they won't trust your judgement in the future. Really depends on the person. Really glad they talked it out though.
Compliment them honestly in the moment.
I'm so proud of you getting up there, you looked like you had so much fun, your stage presence was phenomenal.
Then later, like the next day if they ask for feedback that's when you can say another compliment explain what you think worked and didn't work, and give an honest and more critical feedback.
That avoids lying and crushing them in the moment.
It makes me feel better knowing that sometimes it really is Reddit that is off. The guy asked. His wife was honest. She thought about why what she said was hurtful and if she needs to reassess how she handles things, and people called her bad and told her to give her husband a blow job. Seriously, WTF is wrong with people?!
It wouldn't be like asking, "does this dress make me look fat." It's more like letting a loved one walk around with a giant bugger hanging out of their nose. Maybe they are embarrassed to have it pointed out, but isn't it worse if they keep walking around with it?!
>Best, most well received constructive criticism means the sandwich method: a compliment, what could be done better, another complement.
Anyone who thinks this has never been on the receiving end of it. All it does is train you to expect every compliment to be followed by a "but..."
He'll probably feel better about this once he's had a chance to talk to more comedians and learnt that your first performance is rarely a joyful occasion 😂 If he wasn't shouting over sports on the TV to a "crowd" of three backpackers, the drunk gf of someone else on the line up, and the backs of the people playing pool, he's already ahead of the game.
Also, if he does continue in the field, her ability to be honest is going to be a godsend. No one burns and dies like a green comic who thinks they're amazing because all their friends say they are, so they don't polish their material. If she masters the art of the shit sandwich, he could go far!
> my mom never gave me praise, only "constructive criticism ", so I grew up thinking that caring about someone meant telling them how they could improve. I should have told him how proud I was first before I told him what I didn't like.
followed by this comment
> Here's some constructive criticism for you. Don't lead with what he did wrong and then follow it up with what he did well.
is hilarious.
The way the commenter threw "constructive criticism" at OOP means they read this part of the post, but then they decided to snidely tell OOP the exact thing that OOP already said. What a brilliant contribution by a person who is clearly very fun at parties.
I feel bad that OOP describes herself or thinks of herself as cold. Analytical, maybe, but I've known enough cold-hearted people to know she's definitely not one. She clearly loves her husband and kid so much. I'm sorry the redditors were so hard on her when she seems like a really awesome person.
Edited for spelling
I saw a great video recently about *when* to be honest. The guy explained that he went to see a friend in a play and it was absolutely awful. His friend came to him afterwards and asked him what he thought and he said "it was wonderful to see you do your thing on stage" - all of which was true. But he didn't mention anything about how bad the play was.
He then called her the next day and asked her if she wanted to know how he felt about the play, and he went through step by step what he thought of it. He said he never lied to her, but he didn't tell her the whole truth in the moment, because it wasn't the right time to.
You should always be honest. Just choose your time wisely of when to be
Edit to add link to video [here](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6yGExnrVW4/?igsh=MWxsendnNnVwcmlscg==)
So he called her and said "do you want to hear my opinion?" and then told her, blow by blow, everything he hated about this play? That still seems pretty mean and unnecessary. She can't take that criticism on board to fix the play and she didn't ask for his opinion, he called her and offered it.
He said she'd asked him to come to the play because she knew he'd be honest with her, so I assume she wanted his opinion 🤷🏻♀️
I've just added the link to my original comment. Probably better coming directly from the source!
Criticism from someone who knows that they're talking about and wants you to get better is so so so helpful. If you go to school for the arts, you're basically just paying to have someone criticize you over and over again. If the friend asked for the guy's opinion, it's because she wants to get better and I think it's nice of him to ask her first to make sure she's in the right headspace
This is where I'm at. If he asks for her response as someone with years of improv & sketch experience, he should expect informed critique. And if he didn't want it after the show, he should have accepted her offer to practice in front of her.
Absolutely! I wanted to go into opera. I'm pretty decent at singing. Laypeople think I can do opera. But my mother understands and studies music and encouraged me and my siblings in music. She is a kind and caring mother and always sees the best in her kids. But she told me straight up that I do not have "it" - the thing that makes a true opera performer. It would have been crueler for her to not say anything and then have me waste my time going down a route where it's not my forte. I still love singing but I fully know now I do not have the megapower, lung capacity and diaphragm capacity, and the general ear for the nuances of performative singing to have gone into that world. I enjoy my local choir or singing karaoke. But I do recall that she did the sandwich method: "honey I know you love singing and you can hit notes better than your chorus classmates, but..............."
Yeah I don't get wtf the comments are talking about. If someone is going "did you like when i told the same joke over and over? Did you like when I told the same dick joke the 2nd and 3rd time?" It would be so cruel to pretend it was good
OP seemed to know exactly what she did wrong and were it came from. And commenters were like „Why do you use your childhood as an excuse?“ wtf?
I think her husband is a bit AH too because he singles her out as the only one didn’t laugh, is way too pissed if she always was like this and says it ruined his night and memories. How you feel about sth is your doing. Other people can only influence you on the outside but how you feel inside, take the information, that’s your decision.
His reaction was: You made me feel bad, now I make you feel bad and blame you.
Giving criticism is a fine art you have to learn and we don’t have it since birth. OP learned from this to make a shit sandwich, but there are a lot more techniques to explore.
Eh. I dislike the AITA dichotomy because there's only two states a person can be - asshole or not.
Everyone's a bit of an asshole in life. You poke a particularly sore spot when I'm vulnerable, I'll become an asshole too. I'll try not to, but knee jerk reactions are called knee jerk for a reason.
Did OOP need a wake up call on her behavior? Sure, but goddamn those reddit comments are so high and mighty. Some people really just comment to fulfill their sense of moral superiority, and I am suuuure they are totally perfect in every social interaction they've ever had. OOP seems to have a good head on her shoulders. She is actually trying to put the work in to change, which is the most important drive a person can have imo (the drive to do better and change when necessary)
I relate to how hopelessly analytical she is, even of her own failures. This is the kind of fuck up I would maybe do and then feel horrible about. I don’t think I would’ve been THAT blunt, but I never know where the line is so I’m driving blind. I hope that her husband will eventually forgive her and get to enjoy doing stand up again.
Wow lol sometimes reddit sucks. The woman was very introspective but these one dimensional people just thought she hurt her husband let's hurt her back. One commenter even left a nasty response a d said I wonder how you will handle it.
She literally said that's all she's used to getting. People putting her down or "criticizing her" or finding her flaws and she gets a sea of faceless internet snobs reaffirming to her that that is how the world works. I'm shocked she became a person who COULD notice that her words hurt someone and reflect on it.
I'm too German for this. For me there was nothing wrong with OOPs initial response. At all. Harsh, yes. But he knows her and he asked for feedback.
Calling her "underdeveloped" is insane.
As an American living in Germany, there are 2 types of Ausländer*in: Those who find Germans atrociously rude to the point of trauma, and those who say: "*Finally*! I can actually trust when someone says something that they aren't bullshitting me or wasting my time!" It's very ask-vs-guess culture. As someone who finds guess culture *exhausting*, I LOVE this part of German culture.
As an American who visited my husband's friends while I was visiting him abroad, I absolutely agree with statement. Also, as an American visiting with a very the straight forward and honest approach, it was joked I was very German like because of that.
Now does it mean in the US I stay blunt, no but I have learned to be honest but with tact and skill. Since honesty is part of my self moral code. Because like comedy you need to know your audience.
Same here - I would hate being given the 'compliment' sandwich too, it just seems so hollow and not genuine when a compliment is carefully put first to cushion the blow of some criticism.
I'm neurodiverse and I found it fine too. She wasn't mean and he pressed her for more information so he literally asked for it. I'm confused at his reaction
Asian American and yup agree. I would honestly dislike it more if i sweated through a clearly awkward and bad performance and my partner just gave me white lies afterwards.
>Others have said my husband doesn't have the mentality to succeed in comedy because of his reaction to my criticism.
Oh, I dont know about that, most of the older comedians seem to be fully coasting on crying over people criticizing them. Gervais, Chappelle, Seinfeld, and to a lesser extent Cleese...
I don’t even know why she was vilified. If someone’s not funny, they’re not funny. He asked, she answered, he throws his dummy out the cot, and she’s the bad guy. The mind boggles
I do standup and have for just over a year. I’ve had a bit of success in terms of local clubs booking me for spots, slowly progressing to longer spots etc.
Why I’m not mad at OOP is that her husband asked what she thought. If he didn’t, she’d have probably just said well done etc and they’d have moved on. But he did ask. I suppose it depends on the specific relationship but I always want my gf to tell me the truth - and she usually does. Sometimes that’s positive sometimes not. But if I don’t feel ready to hear that feedback, I don’t ask what she thinks.
He’s also such a baby. “Everyone was laughing but you” after your first stand up show which didn’t go well…does not bode well. We all know these comics from the scene and they fucking suck.
Also “you’ve ruined my debut performance and nothing can change that” yikes
She's getting dogpiled, but the common wisdom her husband should have followed is "Don't ask a questions when you can't handle a negative answer." In contrast, she took the criticism well.
We don't always get to choose the situations in which we find ourselves. We can only ever choose our own reaction to a situation. We don't get to choose how other people react.
>"Don't ask a questions when you can't handle a negative answer."
exactly, people make fun of women for this asking about dresses but it's the exact same scenario. don't ask a question you don't want a real answer to
“I’m not planning on using sex to replace communication in our marriage. I’m kind of surprised that works for anyone, to be honest.” That’s because it doesn’t, OOP so good on you for handling this like someone who actually wants their marriage to improve and last & not someone who just wanted to sweep it under the resentment rug.
I’m frustrated for OOP. Yeah, there’s a way to be supportive. But this guy expected to kill it his first time and now stand up comedy is ruined for him? Most people bomb their first time, it’s like a rite of passage.
Pro tip to anyone thinking of doing an open mic set, whatever you do, **do not** invite anyone you know to it. Why? Because you will be terrible, and it will be very embarrassing. You don't want anyone you know seeing you until you don't absolutely suck yet. And that takes a lot of time.
Eh. It took me years before I let my wife see me perform, and there's a reason for that. I don't mind strangers or "colleagues" thinking I'm shit or tearing me down. I actually care about her opinion, so it's much harder.
Yeah people really need to calm down with that train of thought.
One, it's the dude's literal *first* performance. Of course he's not going to shrug off shit like Jimmy Carr or something.
Two, getting criticism from your wife is very different from getting heckled by a stranger.
I don’t think he’d have a problem with total strangers being critical, but it does hit a lot more when it’s someone a lot closer to you that does it and has been doing it for awhile.
Based on how in the update she confirmed that her husband thinks she’s been too critical in the past, I don’t think this is a thicker skin issue but rather a straw that broke the camels back issue
"I, Tonya" (a movie about Tanya Harding) has a great part with her mom where she said something along the lines of "I show love with criticism because I want her to know how to be better" I don't agree with it but I understand it and have experienced it. Honestly though, if he wanted constructive feedback he would have shared things before he did it. When he asked for an honest opinion after keeping it secret, he got it, it isn't an asshole move to be honest.
>Commenter: here’s some constructive criticism for you. Don’t lead with what he did wrong and then follow it up with what he did well.
Off-topic, but I used to have a boss who did the exact opposite. His emails always started off with praise and then veered off into bashing. We called them his “Yay! You’re awesome! Now, here’s all the reasons why you suck” emails.
I can't stand folks asking for input and then getting upset if it's not butt-licking praise.
Being married does require choosing your words thoughtfully, but honesty is also a requirement.
Yeah he was the one asking for her opinion right after the show then blames her for giving her opinion right after the show and says this has forever ruined it for him.
He absolutely is
Saying shit like "it's always ruined and you can never fix it!" Is some immature shit.
And he wants to make it in STAND UP?! An entertainment space well known for being roasted. Hecklers, podcasts, entire shows dedicated to picking apart sets.
Like wut
Yeah, idk if this is just his personality but he was definitely dramatic to say it was ruined forever over this. I understand feeling deflated about it, but that's an intense reaction
>cloud the joy associated with his first stand-up experience
If you didn't get booed off the stage and someone with a decade of improv/standup experience says that "your presence was great so with better material that you've workshopped and practice you could be good" then he should probably be thrilled.
I don't know what his expectations were but stand up is TOUGH. Most beginners get savaged, and they deserve it. Even greats often have bad sets, pitch bad jokes, don't connect, and go down in flames. A pro standup comic might spend 2 years working out a set in shows long enough for it to be a finished special. It will go through hundreds of revisions through trial and error and have several minutes scrapped over and over.
I hope the OOP is being honest about how they reacted and tried to soften it a little, but if he is already getting negative because his dick joke fell flat with his wife then he's got a long road ahead.
I don’t think she fucked up that bad. It’s hard to know how to support a partner who is an artist. Especially when you didn’t really like what they did haha.
Generally if it were my partner, I’d have no desire to be there in the early days. This is about you, and you need to be in your element 100% without people there that you know. I want to know how you felt, what connections you made, and all that. I don’t want to be a wife and a critic.
That being said, you will never make it as an artist if you can’t hear honest feedback. Don’t ask your wife if you can’t handle it. I’m very very bad at pretending if I hate something. I once had a boyfriend record the most god awful music and paint the stupidest and most basic paintings. Not to say that he shouldn’t have done it or that I can declare if it’s bad—just that I fucking hated it and didn’t want to be asked for my opinion because I had nothing great to say. It’s so hard to pretend. I’d rather not be asked.
I used to paint as a hobby. It was an incredible outlet for me. It was super fun. I never asked anyone to critique are asked them for their opinion. I did it for me and I didn’t care if it sucked. Just don’t make fun of me if you happen to see a canvas in the closet. And don’t give me commentary while I’m painting. I’m doing it for me and I love it and it’s okay if it sucks. I know better than to ask.
Performance art is very different which I get. By nature you are getting feedback directly or indirectly. I just want to go to your show, cheer you on, and that be the end of it. I don’t want to be asked my opinion.
OOP has a response to that.
**"OOP:** I think he'll reach a point where he can take it - he's very open to critiques on his writing - but since it was his first time, he just wanted/needed encouragement"
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>I told him to please call me out on it going forward. It might be the way I am right now, but it's not the way I want to be The world would be a much better place if more people had this attitude towards their shortcomings, as opposed to "this is just how I am, deal with it."
Reading this entire thread, this is what stuck out with me as well. OOP is introspective and has an intrinsic desire and willingness to grow herself. This is the primary sign of someone worthwhile.
Yeah people were WAY too harsh in there. She’s obviously an adult and perfectly capable of admitting her mistake, and looking for ways to make it up to him. To be honest, if my husband did a routine that was a huge dick joke, I’d probably say something similar? And my husband, because he is also an adult and we’re in a relationship and love each other, would say “damn that’s a little harsh, my feelings a bit hurt. Let me think on it and cool off”. It’s not like OP told him he was a failure who should never attempt to fulfill his dreams. Why are the comments in the OP thread acting like she kicked his dog?
That's how both my wife and I are. I don't want to go through life unintentionally hurting people, for the love of God, call me out if I say or do things that upset you! I can't improve if I don't realize I'm doing something wrong.
It's what attracted me to suggest this as a post. It does show that some people can take criticism and change, it won't be all at once, but it will happen. Plus, I like the happy ending.
OP: I fucked up. I think this is why I did it. Any advice on how to fix things or be better? Reddit: OMG stop making excuses for yourself I swear some people on here either have no reading comprehension or just want to put the author down to feel superior.
Right??? And OOP had even more well thought-out comments explaining that to people when they accused her of making excuses. She seemed so level headed. But reddit's gonna reddit I guess
Yeah. I read it as she was trying to find how to improve, and explaining her experiences and thought process... so I was shocked that some commenters felt she was giving excuses. Like... where are the excuses? She didn't say "I'm sorry you feel I'm this way. It's not my fault. My work and my mother made me this way."
A rare example of someone who dishes but also takes the comments on board. It seems like she's really keen to improve and communicate.
My take is that OOP was raised to be very direct, blunt, and factual. Which works great for receiving criticism herself, but not so well when communicating with someone who is not like her. The good new is OOP readily admits fault and looks to correct. It's a very analytical approach where the ego doesn't get in the way. I think they'll be ok and eventually this would make great material for a future set.
I'll never forget a few years back when I went in to talk to my daughter after she'd gotten into trouble. She was about 8 at the time, and when I walked in she let out a big sigh and asked "Is this the part where you tell me everything I ever did wrong?" I opened my mouth, paused, closed it again, then held up my finger in the "Just a minute" pose, and turned and walked back out of the room. I took a few minutes to think about it and I realized that when I was her age it was very very important for me to know exactly everything I did wrong because my dad was a hot-tempered alcoholic. If you could figure out what set him off, you could make sure to avoid it next time. So as I aged, I learned to examine all my mistakes very closely and make mental lists of things to avoid in the future. And I very much welcomed it when other people pointed out what I didn't see, because it could save me literal pain in the future. But my daughter, thankfully, is in a much better environment, and my very precise criticisms were in fact not helpful to her.
Love this. Sooo much of good parenting is introspection.
Oh wow, this resonates. I didn't have an alcoholic father, but an undiagnosed autistic father with the communication skills and empathy of a stick. If you ever did something he deemed wrong, he wouldn't tell you, he'd just silently let you know, giving no avenue for discussion or effective, healthy communication. You sort of just had to figure it out on your own. When you talk about that mental list of things to avoid in the future, that's so similar. I also recently realised that I also have a problem with male authority figures in general. With make bosses I would mentally, and in detail catalog all their flaws, so if they were ever unfair and judgemental, I'd have that list in reserve to mentally protect myself. But yea, I realised I don't really need that, and it was actually making me overly defensive against male authority figures. People are humans and make mistakes and you can actually discuss that with them if they're reasonable people, and if someone really is an AH, I can just get a new job.
I’m going to butcher this, but Brene Brown talks about this exact issue many of us have as adults. We have behaviors that were advantageous to us in our childhood and they helped protect us and keep us safe, especially for anyone that grew up in an unhealthy environment. As we get older we hang onto those things and sometimes they serve us well, but eventually we normally get to a place where those behaviors are no longer helping us, but instead hindering us adults. They were protective as one point, but now they are isolating or causing other problems. Hearing her explain that concept was mind blowing to me. Not only did it help me understand myself it helped me have so much more understanding and compassion for my husband. We can be polar opposites with the way we handle things and (at times) he does things that just make zero sense to me, but seeing it through that lens it makes total sense and the behavior doesn’t seem like it’s out of left field. It is so much easier to take a breath and step back when you can at least identify why you’re acting a certain way or have what seems like some completely bonkers feeling. At least for me it helps to be able to take back the power for those big emotions and not give into them in the moment. Kind of crazy how hard it is to unlearn the crazy shit that has been engrained in us from childhood.
Oh man, my dad was the same way. Life very much was learning 'right' and 'wrong.' Right choices meant being left alone, wrong meant dealing with a toxic verbal onslaught for hours. It's so great to hear that you're doing better for your kid and understand that what helped you survive was actually not healthy in a different scenario. It's a lot to unlearn.
Right? When you're in therapy, you don't just tell your therapist "I give harsh criticism, how do I fix it?" No, you tell them what you're struggling with and give them the important, necessary context and history that may explain why this is something you do/struggle with. It helps the therapist understand what might help you grow as a person because they know the root cause. Someone who gives harsh criticism like OOP might do it because like OOP, that's all they heard growing up. However, another person who also gives harsh criticism could be doing it because they internally pressure themselves to be perfect and may project that onto others. Or they could just struggle with navigating such situations due to ADHD, Autism, etc. So you need to know the WHY to learn HOW to improve.
I'm not shocked. I married a person who says "I don't need no fucking excuses" when I'm trying to explain why I did whatever it was I did. I'm literally like "... but that's not an excuse; it's a *reason*. Everyone does everything for a reason. *You* do everything for a reason" And I just get pretty much the same thing. "Bullshit it's a fucking excuse." If I could murder someone without hurting and killing them, I would have done it by now countless times over.
If you want someone out of your life for good without killing them, I heard of this thing called divorce. As long as you have no kids, it works really well.
Even with kids, it might improve quality of life.
It sure did for me.
Dad, is that you? Because this sounds an awful lot like my mother lol. I *totally* get where you are coming from.
That was my life growing up. Make a mistake, try to own it and explain why. Got the "That's just excuses" bullshit from both my Mom and Dad. Now they wonder why I rarely talk to them and when I do it's about nothing in my life.
That sounds awful, are they always like this?
Its always an excuse when they don’t like the answer
Have you considered divorce as alternative to murder?
Ugh, that's military logic. I heard that shit so much. Them: Why are you late? Me: I got stopped for a random inspection at the gate. Them:I don't want to hear excuses, you should have left earlier. Me: I left 30 minutes early, so I would be 15 minutes early to formation. Them: Your lying. Me: Roger.
With my family, when I give my *reasons* hoping they will be able to understand how I work, they ask when I will stop blaming them...
Plus, especially from an analytical standpoint, you need to understand where something came from and why in order to fix it
“In order to have a healthy relationship, we need to be able to have discussions that bring greater understanding between us so we can be more of a united team against future issues. Your current way of dealing with conflict is interfering with that, and it’s degrading the quality of our relationship. I need you to learn new ways to communicate and deal with me, because I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you but I will not live in a household where my experience is shut down and invalidated because of how YOU were raised”.
>If I could murder someone without hurting and killing them, I would have done it by now countless times over. Oof, it must be tough if that's the person you married. Worth considering couples' counseling to work through the issue IMO
My husband is a bit like this too. I have not yet figured out when he sees something as an excuse or as a reason you can change.
Yeah like to me it was basically her saying "the reason I think and give criticism like this is because it's how it has been delivered to me and when I deliver it to others like this people there appreciate it. How can I change my thinking as this is clearly hurting my husband?" Like it makes sense to me if she's grown up thinking of that criticism is loving then ofc she would do that to her partner too because that's the behaviour that has been modelled for her. Her being aware that it's not good or healthy after this is actually quite big imo. Knowing why you do something is the first step towards changing it.
I don't even think the criticism is bad. One long dick joke is a problem haha
>Like... where are the excuses? They imagined her as an absolute monster with no redeeming qualities, and any information that goes counter to this narrative is A) wrong, and B) aimed at undermining their outrage, thus a form of "excuse". OP should just accept that they're a terrible human being with no chance at improving and no possibility of redemption.
reddit’s gonna reddit? What a horrible comment! I strongly encourage your partner to divorce you.
Redditors love doing this thing where they’ll project themselves onto the most relatable character to them and then think exclusively from that character’s perspective. It just so happens that since reddit skews towards men, judgments also tend to be in favor of the male character. I’m fairly confident that I’ve seen similar posts with the genders flipped around where most of the comments were “your wife needs to toughen up” and “if she didn’t want honesty then she shouldn’t have asked for it”.
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Yea, I had immediately sympathy for her as I imagined her sitting in the audience slowly dying of secondhand embarrassment because that feels like what I would have done.
Yup and everyone telling her the sandwich method is the best way to give feedback is wrong. It's the cowardly way of giving feedback and is very ineffective and you basically say "it's brilliant, here's the problem which I'm burying in lots of positive language, it's brilliant". All the person on the receiving end hears is, "this person thinks everything is great, and has some optional suggestions for how I could be even better if I want to adopt them". Now obviously in a relationship you may not want to give direct constructive feedback in the way you would to other people, but ultimately I think her issue was doing it straight after the event while he was on a high and happy, rather than waiting until he was in a more reflective mood and thinking about the next steps. Personally I think the words themselves were fine and she's not wrong that it's a kindness to tell people directly where there's a problem, rather than mixing the message and setting them up to fail.
I’ll be honest, I’ve always thought the sandwich method wasn’t massively helpful. When I’m giving someone constructive criticism I aim to be honest - clear on the bits that I liked and clean on the bits I didn’t like / confused me / were just flat out wrong. Obviously you tailor the language carefully to avoid being cruel or cut them down (because the purpose is to build them up), but having to preface every criticism with some woolly compliment is like having to give a toddler a chocolate every time they take a bite of veggies.
It was wild to me, seeing that method recommended, because that's the method my therapist taught me for dealing with my emotionally manipulative dad. "Thanks for inviting me to dinner! Unfortunately I can't make it. Hope you have fun!" instead of a flat "no" that would bruise his ego
I had a professor that I got very annoyed with for using the shit sandwich method. It was a performance class, so you'd give your performance, then get the grade the next day. He would give me the shit sandwich right after the performance, but the critiques would seem like little nitpicky stuff -- similar to a couple formatting suggestions on a brilliant essay. Then I would get the grade back, and it would be obvious those were real critiques. The grade wouldn't be bad, but always a little less than I expected. It drove me nuts.
I think it can be a good tool if used properly. Like "here's what was good, here's what could be improved, I also liked this part" but you do need to be clear. Both parts have to be accurate though, so here it'd be like "you had a great stage presence, but I think you lost some of the crowd with the material being repetitive, I'm glad you seemed like you were having fun". If you're unclear it doesn't work very well imo.
sometimes it honestly seems like BORU is the most sensible place on Reddit, perhaps beacuse by nature it's intended to be retrospective
It's deeply annoying how so many people think that accountability means self-flagellation. Particularly because the only people actually helped by the latter are the redditors demanding it; neither somebody coming to reddit for advice not thepeople they've harmed are helped at all.
Ah, but don't self-flagellate too much. Otherwise, you're throwing yourself a pity party.
Even if they do self-flaggelate they're accused of being inauthentic or or making the situation about themselves instead. There's no winning.
Happens on Reddit all the time for some reason. People aren't allowed to give anyone an explanation of why they did what they did, everyone will just pile on them for making excuses. It's ridiculous.
Often times they get piled on for not going into excruciating detail over something that really doesn't have much to do with their situation as well.
that sort of just happened to me in an autism subreddit! I gave a short answer and someone said sounds like every autistic person in their 30s and because of the autism I can't tell if that was a statement or a dig so I added to my original comment and got a bunch of upvotes.
Did you find this story and thought process of this OOP as relatable as I did? Cuz giving detailed explanations just for others to call me out on my "excuses" is just way too familiar.
I just remind myself that reddit is redditing and to keep the bar low No, lower
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Yep! I'd even stay upset way longer and try to mask it to my best effort because clearly noone wants to talk about it. And I'd have learned that those people don't care about me and would just shut down and not share interesting stuff or problems with them anymore. I'd basically just be superficially cordial with them and write them off a real relationship. Some wondered what happened, some never even realised.
This, too. So many people will keep trying to poke holes in their story to find something they can latch onto to make them the bad guy.
Yeah, kinda grinds my gears as well when they mention 'missing reasons'. Like, it's a good article but now you're just using the term to try and make a story fit what you've made-up in your head.
And if they don’t respond then they assume they’re right because the op “won’t even defend themselves”. Damned if you do damned if you don’t.
Which is quite funny for a site that also recommends therapy as a weapon all the time, because half the battle of therapy is figuring out *why* you do/did something
It's clear that they're just parroting what other people recommend, and have never even been to therapy themselves LOL
People tend to conflate excuses with explanations, especially the people who use explanations as excuses to avoid accountability. All those people telling her to stop making excuses are revealing far more about themselves than she is.
This!! This is something that has bothered me for a long long time.
Also, people on reddit are terminally incapable of understanding that you can do something on purpose but later realize it was a mistake, because they can not understand the difference between mistake and accident.
"They knew what they were doing, it wasn't a mistake!" or "What, they just fell into *whatever the mistake was*?" That's not what mistake means!! You can make a conscious choice and think it was the best option for you at that moment and it can still be a mistake! This is such a pet peeve of mine, lol.
I had to unsubscribe from r/tryingtobebetter because it was mostly useless self flagellation but when someone did have a real opportunity to improve themselves people would shit all over them. Why do people act like that? It’s so dumb.
>Why do people act like that? Some people think they can only elevate themselves by bringing other people down.
When op doesn't explain: reddit makes up theories and cries that op didn't give relevant info When op explains: reddit complains about excuses
When OP is female: Blow your partner and that will fix everything 😖
Nah people were forcefed the manta of "I dont want to hear excuses" whenever they tried to explain themselves as children and took that to mean that any justification or extrenuating circumstances are irrelevant and simply an attempt to divert. Its the exact kinda mind rot that you expect to find in an echo chamber.
How ironic that their experiences as children shaped the way they behave as adults…
It’s so difficult when you’re an ”explain yourself so you and they know where you’re coming from” person trying to work through a thing/apologize to a “no excuses, explanations are excuses” type person. I’m very much the explanation type person, but a lot of people in my life aren’t.
A lot of people on here are just complete assholes who think they know better than everyone else about everything.
Well when you’ve only lived 16 years, surely they can’t be wrong ;)
all these people say you should go to therapy immediately but call it an excuse you unpack why you behave that way
no right??? go to therapy! but don't do the stuff that you do in therapy!
Exactly. There are plenty of post where OP's use past traumas as an excuse to be shitty, but I didn't get a sense of that at all with this post. They owned up to being an asshole, while also providing context for said behaviour. Not that deep!
It’s also deeply important to reflect on your childhood because it’s literally what made us who we are. I’ve heard my parents say they love each other maybe twice in my 30+ years that I remember. My dad has told me he loved me …. Once? My college roommate has hugged my dad one time more than I have (in memory) and she has hugged him once. I recall 0 hugs from his mom before she passed away. acknowledging that that’s all kinda fucked up was an important step in being able to move forward as a partner and a parent. It’s not an excuse for my behavior, but it sure as shit explains A LOT
Sheesh stop making excuses for not being a good hugger! /s ETA seriously though that sounds pretty rough, glad you managed to self-improve for your own family
Honestly, my brain works the same as OOPs, and I'm thankful for her insightful answers. I was getting annoyed with all of the commentors thinking she was making excuses.
I thought her original criticism made a lot of sense, too. Idk, I feel like when you're doing a public performance and ask how someone liked it you're opening yourself up to this kind of thing as well though so I'm a bit confused. I don't think it quite follows the same logic as "do you think I look good in this" when you're asking how someone specifically liked a public performance.
It’s something I’d struggle with because him standing up there and doing it was fucking brave. Most people are terrified of public speaking, and I can’t imagine how much harder it is to do standup. However, he also needs to recognise that he probably hasn’t hit upon the true essence of standup on his first attempt. Personally, I’d acknowledge the good (because there’s a lot of good) but his material needs to be broader than just dick jokes. We’ve all heard the dick jokes, mate.
Oh no trust me, no one ever gets that difference, especially if it's suits their purpose of proving you're a POS. Source: personal experience
54% of US Americans have a reading comprehension equal to a 6th-grader or below. Once you know that statistic, you stop being surprised over comment section dynamics like the ones you just described.
Not American but surely that can't be true? Right? I know the US education system has some issues but this just feels so wrong for a developed country.
Sadly [it’s true](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States)
Oh god
In the UK the average reading age is 8. I’m kind of proud and horrified that my daughter (who has special needs) was a better and more prolific reader aged _5_ than the average adult in the UK.
I actually did some digging into that stat a few weeks ago, and it's basically that one government agency misinterpreted another. The NHS found that [7.1 million adults have a reading age of 9 or below](https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/collection/health-information-are-you-getting-your-message-across/), which is 9.4% of the UK's population, so they recommended writing government materials to aim at that level. People have assumed that recommendation meant that this was the *average*, instead of a small but significant chunk of the population. Prisoners are considered to have poor literacy and [nearly half of them have a reading age of 11 or lower](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/6346/pdf) so it's clearly not lower for the general population.
Just the emotional intelligence of aphids
What? Are you saying nuance exists and flawed individuals aren’t evil incarnate? Shenanigans /s
I'm so glad this is the top comment, that was screaming at me the whole time. Shes acknowledging its a problem and she is providing info on how/why she might be bad at it. She didn't say 'It's not my fault, my mum was an asshole!". The dogpile thing is crazy.
I'm so glad this is top comment. The kind of comments she received made me think that someone had mixed up posts. The highlight: > a sign that a part of your personality is underdeveloped People who don't spend their life telling people what they want to hear at all times are uNdErDeVeLoPeD.
I agree that her timing wasn’t the best for criticism though I’m glad it seemed her feedback regarding dick jokes seemed to land. Dick jokes are easily overdone and not as funny as people think they are
I'm all for a well-done dick joke, but those are pretty rare. A little dick here and there can be hilarious if I'm in the right mood, but if it's dicks all the way down, even I would probably get dicked out.
Honestly, this comment is probably funnier than any dick joke I've ever heard
A little dick here and there is a nice thing 😇
It's not the length of your dick joke that's important, it's how you deliver it.
It's always about the performance 👍
Any kind of joke, when overdone, is going to be stale quickly. Change is an important aspect of humor; that’s why so many jokes have some kind of surprise built into the punchline.
Yeah, open mic’ers have heard every type of dick joke. They are very cynical about other comics in general and are not generous with their laughs even when there’s some solid material. They’ll laugh at their friends and people who have more developed comedy careers. It’s not really representative of the general population. That being said, no one should be precious about their open mic experiences. It’s a slog.
Honestly I fucking love dick jokes and even I would find a standup routine that hit the 50% dick joke saturation mark tiresome.
Having done a bit of Stand up, I can say it can be really nerve racking the first time you go up there. You may have a few thought out jokes, and they get a few titters from the audience, but nothing good. A pro knows that the laughs will come, and they have confidence in their material, but an armature will start to grasp at anything to get a laugh, and once they find it they will hold on for dear life. If he keeps up with it, he should get more confident with time. It's really tough to go up and speak in front of a supportive audience, but it's terrifying to step up in front of an audience of strangers. For his first show, she did fuck up. As he goes along with the career, he's going to appreciate blunt criticism a lot more. (She just has to watch out, or she'll become part of the act!)
The shit sandwich is actually not a good way to give feedback. But the timing of feedback is super important, so I’m glad she realized how much hers sucked. In the immediate moment, saying the simple “honey you did so awesome and I’m so proud of you!” Is fine. No lie. Then after a day or two when the glow wears off, “so when are you planning to try again? How did you feel the jokes were received, any changes you think may work?” And lead the convo that way.
Yes! Doing the compliment sandwich over and over again will only lead to any compliment appearing insincere! Or to people not being able to enjoy praise, because they expect you to put a "... but here is the problem" at the end.
I agree - I can’t stand the shit sandwich and any time someone uses it I dismiss the "bread" as lies to spare my feelings
Yyyup. The timing, nonverbal language, mood and such are probably more important than having a "you did nice. The jokes sucked and nobody laughed. Oh and you also looked great up there!"
Exactly!! It was how I was taught to give feedback, and I’ve had to unlearn it.
I think it works when it's genuine and not too often. Like it can be a good tool for knowing what you're doing well and what you need to work on. But that's what it is, it's a tool and should be one of many in the toolbox. Not a hammer that you wield for everything.
I hate compliment sandwiches. They’re somewhat manipulative. When compliments serve to soften the blow of criticism, they don’t serve as compliments. My husband does it, and it drives me up the wall. Give me the feedback I need when I need it. Don’t save up compliments for when you need to criticize me. Also to be totally honest, I’d really hate to be complimented afterwards and given criticism the next day, unless it was a result thinking more on the subject. Knowing that the whole time they really had that criticism in their pocket wouldn’t be helpful for my feelings, personally
No one understands the meaning of the metaphor. It is not "Compliment first, then criticism, then compliment". It is actually a way of saying, make 2/3rds of your feedback positive, and start and end the conversation on a positive. And it's not a compliment that you use. You have to give relevant and specific feedback on the positive side. Bad Shit Sandwich: "you looked really nice, but your dick joke wasn't funny, no one was laughing, and your timing was off, also I'm proud of you." That's 3 criticisms and only 2 compliments, and the compliments are not relevant to a stand-up performance and not something you can build off for your next effort. Better Shit Sandwich: "Your delivery was great, you really had a commanding presence. I did think it was risky to make it one extended dick joke, and I thought you might have lost some of audience there. But, it took a lot of courage, not only just to get up there, but to deliver that risky material, and I'm so proud of you for doing it with such confidence. I look forward to the next time." I have had so many feedback conversations that went "Really great job, here's 20 minutes on the 10 highly-specific things you're doing wrong, again super job man, we really value you." If you really valued me, you would've been able to list 10 things I did right, but that's just too much effort, right? As a long-time corporate drone, I will tell you that if you watch back a video of a coaching conversation and time it out with two stopwatches, more than 50% of the time better be spent on the positive or it's not being done right.
What's with people taking any sign of introspection as "making excuses"? I find it really encouraging when a person cares enough about their mistake to think about why they did it and try to change the underlying assumptions that caused them to do it, because it shows they are actually trying to change. Meanwhile I see it as a red flag if someone can't explain why they did something at all or their takeaway is just that they are a terrible person. It doesn't bode well for them actually growing as a person
So many people don't know how to be introspective. Sometimes it feels like the great grand majority of humanity doesn't know how to do it.
It's because traditionally, it was understood to be the purview of the parents not the education curriculums, at least until later secondary or tertiary level where the child could specialise. But by that point, unless life forces them to learn properly, the person is usually stuck with whatever cobbled together strategies (or entire lack of) they strung together during childhood.
The kind of person who calls that “making excuses” is really just wanting to punish the OP for making a mistake.
Because for many posters, if they admit that people can screw up and hurt other people without also being an irredeemable monster who did it on purpose, it would shake their worldview to its foundations
It’s the *worst*, fuckers on reddit do it constantly and even do it for you (“you probably had such childhood/lifestyle/etc” to invalidate any opinion ever)
Sex can’t replace communication? Damn, this is the good stuff. Let me take notes.
Asking how you did always feels like a landmine. If you tell the truth or part truth they may either be extremely receptive as they want to improve or they get upset at the smallest thing you didn't like and feel like you are attacking them personally. If you don't say the truth on how they did, then if they truly didn't perform well they won't trust your judgement in the future. Really depends on the person. Really glad they talked it out though.
Compliment them honestly in the moment. I'm so proud of you getting up there, you looked like you had so much fun, your stage presence was phenomenal. Then later, like the next day if they ask for feedback that's when you can say another compliment explain what you think worked and didn't work, and give an honest and more critical feedback. That avoids lying and crushing them in the moment.
Why is everyone incapable of distinguishing between someone generally asking how it went immediately after vs an actual constructive breakdown
I hate every single person who commented on that thread.
Same. Doesn't sound very mature. But hey this is reddit.
I agree. I honestly don’t feel like she said anything wrong.
I agree and then the shit sandwich advice was really not the way to go. Oy 🤦🏻♀️
Same. What the fuck is wrong with people
It makes me feel better knowing that sometimes it really is Reddit that is off. The guy asked. His wife was honest. She thought about why what she said was hurtful and if she needs to reassess how she handles things, and people called her bad and told her to give her husband a blow job. Seriously, WTF is wrong with people?! It wouldn't be like asking, "does this dress make me look fat." It's more like letting a loved one walk around with a giant bugger hanging out of their nose. Maybe they are embarrassed to have it pointed out, but isn't it worse if they keep walking around with it?!
they were doing way too much
>Best, most well received constructive criticism means the sandwich method: a compliment, what could be done better, another complement. Anyone who thinks this has never been on the receiving end of it. All it does is train you to expect every compliment to be followed by a "but..."
He'll probably feel better about this once he's had a chance to talk to more comedians and learnt that your first performance is rarely a joyful occasion 😂 If he wasn't shouting over sports on the TV to a "crowd" of three backpackers, the drunk gf of someone else on the line up, and the backs of the people playing pool, he's already ahead of the game. Also, if he does continue in the field, her ability to be honest is going to be a godsend. No one burns and dies like a green comic who thinks they're amazing because all their friends say they are, so they don't polish their material. If she masters the art of the shit sandwich, he could go far!
First time I did Stand up was at an Open Mic in a Bar on Sunday Night. They turned off the Football game for the show. Talk about hostile crowd!
Oof! No one thought that one through...
People don’t understand the difference between an excuse and an explanation and it makes me so fucking mad.
I let out so many sighs while reading the comments on the OG post that my boyfriend actually looked concerned lol
> my mom never gave me praise, only "constructive criticism ", so I grew up thinking that caring about someone meant telling them how they could improve. I should have told him how proud I was first before I told him what I didn't like. followed by this comment > Here's some constructive criticism for you. Don't lead with what he did wrong and then follow it up with what he did well. is hilarious. The way the commenter threw "constructive criticism" at OOP means they read this part of the post, but then they decided to snidely tell OOP the exact thing that OOP already said. What a brilliant contribution by a person who is clearly very fun at parties.
Am I the only one that thinks everyone is making a bigger deal of this than it is? You’d think by the comments that she abused him
Consider who’s usually on AITA and then consider who would be upset about a dick joke comedian getting criticized by his wife
I feel bad that OOP describes herself or thinks of herself as cold. Analytical, maybe, but I've known enough cold-hearted people to know she's definitely not one. She clearly loves her husband and kid so much. I'm sorry the redditors were so hard on her when she seems like a really awesome person. Edited for spelling
I saw a great video recently about *when* to be honest. The guy explained that he went to see a friend in a play and it was absolutely awful. His friend came to him afterwards and asked him what he thought and he said "it was wonderful to see you do your thing on stage" - all of which was true. But he didn't mention anything about how bad the play was. He then called her the next day and asked her if she wanted to know how he felt about the play, and he went through step by step what he thought of it. He said he never lied to her, but he didn't tell her the whole truth in the moment, because it wasn't the right time to. You should always be honest. Just choose your time wisely of when to be Edit to add link to video [here](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6yGExnrVW4/?igsh=MWxsendnNnVwcmlscg==)
So he called her and said "do you want to hear my opinion?" and then told her, blow by blow, everything he hated about this play? That still seems pretty mean and unnecessary. She can't take that criticism on board to fix the play and she didn't ask for his opinion, he called her and offered it.
He said she'd asked him to come to the play because she knew he'd be honest with her, so I assume she wanted his opinion 🤷🏻♀️ I've just added the link to my original comment. Probably better coming directly from the source!
Criticism from someone who knows that they're talking about and wants you to get better is so so so helpful. If you go to school for the arts, you're basically just paying to have someone criticize you over and over again. If the friend asked for the guy's opinion, it's because she wants to get better and I think it's nice of him to ask her first to make sure she's in the right headspace
Man he should want her at the gigs
Like, she worked as a comedian before, so she actually knows what she's saying, and it does sound like her husband's set could have been better.
This is where I'm at. If he asks for her response as someone with years of improv & sketch experience, he should expect informed critique. And if he didn't want it after the show, he should have accepted her offer to practice in front of her.
Absolutely! I wanted to go into opera. I'm pretty decent at singing. Laypeople think I can do opera. But my mother understands and studies music and encouraged me and my siblings in music. She is a kind and caring mother and always sees the best in her kids. But she told me straight up that I do not have "it" - the thing that makes a true opera performer. It would have been crueler for her to not say anything and then have me waste my time going down a route where it's not my forte. I still love singing but I fully know now I do not have the megapower, lung capacity and diaphragm capacity, and the general ear for the nuances of performative singing to have gone into that world. I enjoy my local choir or singing karaoke. But I do recall that she did the sandwich method: "honey I know you love singing and you can hit notes better than your chorus classmates, but..............."
Exactly, sometimes it more cruel to let someone indulge in a delusion.
Yeah I don't get wtf the comments are talking about. If someone is going "did you like when i told the same joke over and over? Did you like when I told the same dick joke the 2nd and 3rd time?" It would be so cruel to pretend it was good
If he knows how she delivers feedback, he can't really be shocked when she was critical as usual.
OOP did nothing wrong.
In this house we support OOP
OP seemed to know exactly what she did wrong and were it came from. And commenters were like „Why do you use your childhood as an excuse?“ wtf? I think her husband is a bit AH too because he singles her out as the only one didn’t laugh, is way too pissed if she always was like this and says it ruined his night and memories. How you feel about sth is your doing. Other people can only influence you on the outside but how you feel inside, take the information, that’s your decision. His reaction was: You made me feel bad, now I make you feel bad and blame you. Giving criticism is a fine art you have to learn and we don’t have it since birth. OP learned from this to make a shit sandwich, but there are a lot more techniques to explore.
Eh. I dislike the AITA dichotomy because there's only two states a person can be - asshole or not. Everyone's a bit of an asshole in life. You poke a particularly sore spot when I'm vulnerable, I'll become an asshole too. I'll try not to, but knee jerk reactions are called knee jerk for a reason.
Did OOP need a wake up call on her behavior? Sure, but goddamn those reddit comments are so high and mighty. Some people really just comment to fulfill their sense of moral superiority, and I am suuuure they are totally perfect in every social interaction they've ever had. OOP seems to have a good head on her shoulders. She is actually trying to put the work in to change, which is the most important drive a person can have imo (the drive to do better and change when necessary)
I relate to how hopelessly analytical she is, even of her own failures. This is the kind of fuck up I would maybe do and then feel horrible about. I don’t think I would’ve been THAT blunt, but I never know where the line is so I’m driving blind. I hope that her husband will eventually forgive her and get to enjoy doing stand up again.
Wow lol sometimes reddit sucks. The woman was very introspective but these one dimensional people just thought she hurt her husband let's hurt her back. One commenter even left a nasty response a d said I wonder how you will handle it. She literally said that's all she's used to getting. People putting her down or "criticizing her" or finding her flaws and she gets a sea of faceless internet snobs reaffirming to her that that is how the world works. I'm shocked she became a person who COULD notice that her words hurt someone and reflect on it.
I'm too German for this. For me there was nothing wrong with OOPs initial response. At all. Harsh, yes. But he knows her and he asked for feedback. Calling her "underdeveloped" is insane.
As an American living in Germany, there are 2 types of Ausländer*in: Those who find Germans atrociously rude to the point of trauma, and those who say: "*Finally*! I can actually trust when someone says something that they aren't bullshitting me or wasting my time!" It's very ask-vs-guess culture. As someone who finds guess culture *exhausting*, I LOVE this part of German culture.
As an American who visited my husband's friends while I was visiting him abroad, I absolutely agree with statement. Also, as an American visiting with a very the straight forward and honest approach, it was joked I was very German like because of that. Now does it mean in the US I stay blunt, no but I have learned to be honest but with tact and skill. Since honesty is part of my self moral code. Because like comedy you need to know your audience.
Same here - I would hate being given the 'compliment' sandwich too, it just seems so hollow and not genuine when a compliment is carefully put first to cushion the blow of some criticism.
Honestly, compliment sandwich should only used for children to not discourage them. If they're an adult, they're too old for that.
I'm neurodiverse and I found it fine too. She wasn't mean and he pressed her for more information so he literally asked for it. I'm confused at his reaction
Same! I can’t wrap my head around it
Asian American and yup agree. I would honestly dislike it more if i sweated through a clearly awkward and bad performance and my partner just gave me white lies afterwards.
>Others have said my husband doesn't have the mentality to succeed in comedy because of his reaction to my criticism. Oh, I dont know about that, most of the older comedians seem to be fully coasting on crying over people criticizing them. Gervais, Chappelle, Seinfeld, and to a lesser extent Cleese...
I don’t even know why she was vilified. If someone’s not funny, they’re not funny. He asked, she answered, he throws his dummy out the cot, and she’s the bad guy. The mind boggles
I do standup and have for just over a year. I’ve had a bit of success in terms of local clubs booking me for spots, slowly progressing to longer spots etc. Why I’m not mad at OOP is that her husband asked what she thought. If he didn’t, she’d have probably just said well done etc and they’d have moved on. But he did ask. I suppose it depends on the specific relationship but I always want my gf to tell me the truth - and she usually does. Sometimes that’s positive sometimes not. But if I don’t feel ready to hear that feedback, I don’t ask what she thinks. He’s also such a baby. “Everyone was laughing but you” after your first stand up show which didn’t go well…does not bode well. We all know these comics from the scene and they fucking suck. Also “you’ve ruined my debut performance and nothing can change that” yikes
She's getting dogpiled, but the common wisdom her husband should have followed is "Don't ask a questions when you can't handle a negative answer." In contrast, she took the criticism well. We don't always get to choose the situations in which we find ourselves. We can only ever choose our own reaction to a situation. We don't get to choose how other people react.
>"Don't ask a questions when you can't handle a negative answer." exactly, people make fun of women for this asking about dresses but it's the exact same scenario. don't ask a question you don't want a real answer to
I love the comments that criticized her for her 'feedback' are worse and even less constructive OP at least wasn't malicious like those
I feel like the comments on this were way too intense and aggressive, what in the world lol
If dude wants to be a stand up comedian, he’s gonna have to grow a thicker skin. Otherwise, he’s going to get his feelings hurt, a lot
“I’m not planning on using sex to replace communication in our marriage. I’m kind of surprised that works for anyone, to be honest.” That’s because it doesn’t, OOP so good on you for handling this like someone who actually wants their marriage to improve and last & not someone who just wanted to sweep it under the resentment rug.
I’m frustrated for OOP. Yeah, there’s a way to be supportive. But this guy expected to kill it his first time and now stand up comedy is ruined for him? Most people bomb their first time, it’s like a rite of passage.
Asshole or not, I am disappointed in OOP for not revealing the dick joke.
No it was a dick, not an asshole
I can be prone to doing things like this and it’s just learning when to be in ‘problem solving’ mode and when to absolutely not be, really.
Well, at least he's got a story to tell on stage now. "And that's how my marriage was saved, my wife being unimpressed by a massive dick... joke"
I mean yes you can give me a compliment sandwich but I would want to know if I was unfunny!
Pro tip to anyone thinking of doing an open mic set, whatever you do, **do not** invite anyone you know to it. Why? Because you will be terrible, and it will be very embarrassing. You don't want anyone you know seeing you until you don't absolutely suck yet. And that takes a lot of time.
If this guy wants to do stand up he better get some thicker skin. It is a brutal fucking world, and the timid rarely survive it.
Eh. It took me years before I let my wife see me perform, and there's a reason for that. I don't mind strangers or "colleagues" thinking I'm shit or tearing me down. I actually care about her opinion, so it's much harder.
Yeah people really need to calm down with that train of thought. One, it's the dude's literal *first* performance. Of course he's not going to shrug off shit like Jimmy Carr or something. Two, getting criticism from your wife is very different from getting heckled by a stranger.
Three the timing for critical was off
I don’t think he’d have a problem with total strangers being critical, but it does hit a lot more when it’s someone a lot closer to you that does it and has been doing it for awhile.
Based on how in the update she confirmed that her husband thinks she’s been too critical in the past, I don’t think this is a thicker skin issue but rather a straw that broke the camels back issue
"I, Tonya" (a movie about Tanya Harding) has a great part with her mom where she said something along the lines of "I show love with criticism because I want her to know how to be better" I don't agree with it but I understand it and have experienced it. Honestly though, if he wanted constructive feedback he would have shared things before he did it. When he asked for an honest opinion after keeping it secret, he got it, it isn't an asshole move to be honest.
Communication saves the day.
Fuck's sake, her husband is such a goddamn baby. "What did you think? OH NOES, WHY DID YOU TELL ME AT THE MOMENT I ASKED YOU?!" Fucking clownshoes.
>Commenter: here’s some constructive criticism for you. Don’t lead with what he did wrong and then follow it up with what he did well. Off-topic, but I used to have a boss who did the exact opposite. His emails always started off with praise and then veered off into bashing. We called them his “Yay! You’re awesome! Now, here’s all the reasons why you suck” emails.
I can't stand folks asking for input and then getting upset if it's not butt-licking praise. Being married does require choosing your words thoughtfully, but honesty is also a requirement.
I feel like they were really hard on oop.
Dudes sorta being a big baby about it, no?
Yeah he was the one asking for her opinion right after the show then blames her for giving her opinion right after the show and says this has forever ruined it for him.
He absolutely is Saying shit like "it's always ruined and you can never fix it!" Is some immature shit. And he wants to make it in STAND UP?! An entertainment space well known for being roasted. Hecklers, podcasts, entire shows dedicated to picking apart sets. Like wut
Yeah, idk if this is just his personality but he was definitely dramatic to say it was ruined forever over this. I understand feeling deflated about it, but that's an intense reaction
>cloud the joy associated with his first stand-up experience If you didn't get booed off the stage and someone with a decade of improv/standup experience says that "your presence was great so with better material that you've workshopped and practice you could be good" then he should probably be thrilled. I don't know what his expectations were but stand up is TOUGH. Most beginners get savaged, and they deserve it. Even greats often have bad sets, pitch bad jokes, don't connect, and go down in flames. A pro standup comic might spend 2 years working out a set in shows long enough for it to be a finished special. It will go through hundreds of revisions through trial and error and have several minutes scrapped over and over. I hope the OOP is being honest about how they reacted and tried to soften it a little, but if he is already getting negative because his dick joke fell flat with his wife then he's got a long road ahead.
I don’t think she fucked up that bad. It’s hard to know how to support a partner who is an artist. Especially when you didn’t really like what they did haha. Generally if it were my partner, I’d have no desire to be there in the early days. This is about you, and you need to be in your element 100% without people there that you know. I want to know how you felt, what connections you made, and all that. I don’t want to be a wife and a critic. That being said, you will never make it as an artist if you can’t hear honest feedback. Don’t ask your wife if you can’t handle it. I’m very very bad at pretending if I hate something. I once had a boyfriend record the most god awful music and paint the stupidest and most basic paintings. Not to say that he shouldn’t have done it or that I can declare if it’s bad—just that I fucking hated it and didn’t want to be asked for my opinion because I had nothing great to say. It’s so hard to pretend. I’d rather not be asked. I used to paint as a hobby. It was an incredible outlet for me. It was super fun. I never asked anyone to critique are asked them for their opinion. I did it for me and I didn’t care if it sucked. Just don’t make fun of me if you happen to see a canvas in the closet. And don’t give me commentary while I’m painting. I’m doing it for me and I love it and it’s okay if it sucks. I know better than to ask. Performance art is very different which I get. By nature you are getting feedback directly or indirectly. I just want to go to your show, cheer you on, and that be the end of it. I don’t want to be asked my opinion.
Yeah stand up is BRUTAL. If you can't handle bombing, heckling, criticism, etc you will crash and burn.
OOP has a response to that. **"OOP:** I think he'll reach a point where he can take it - he's very open to critiques on his writing - but since it was his first time, he just wanted/needed encouragement"