Raise your hand if you have an interesting story to tell. Go on…I’ll wait…okay, now put your hand down before someone sees you. You’re embarrassing me! Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that we all have stuff to share. Everyone has had a scary experience, depressing time, gross accident, or brush with celebrity. Some of these may even make for an interesting story. That doesn’t justify playing “I can top that!” when someone shares one.

I notice it happens more when people are drunk. Someone will share a funny anecdote about a brush with death and suddenly some cock-snot has to chime in with, “You think THAT’S bad? Let me tell you about the time I drank sour milk while watching ‘Eddie Murphy: RAW’ and laughed at the same time. The chunky, foul-smelling white junk shot out of my nose and all over my shirt. It was like my face had an orgasm and gave my bear belly a facial. HAHA HOO HAHA!” Sure, your story might be amusing or even revolting beyond belief, but why not wait for your turn to share it? Don’t try to segue into your story from someone else’s punch line.  It’s rude to ride the good feeling generated by someone else’s interesting tale or story-telling skills. It’s like letting your wingman do all the foreplay only to torpedo the pink whale eye yourself.

Sometimes your story just isn’t that great. Sometimes you don’t know how to tell a story. So when you try to share how a drunk Debbie Gibson once gave you head in the back of a club in the early 90’s, you wind up dwelling too much on what music was playing or how many drinks you had. The point is that you shouldn’t chance associating your stuff with the other stuff which just impressed the group who are your audience. You’ll never see a comedian come up on stage and riff on a joke the person before them told. It’s considered bad form. If you do though, you know you’re watching the hackettiest of the hacks up there and that might be another story for you to tell in the future.

If you can’t help but be a big mouth and must blurt something out when someone besides you is getting attention, just follow a few simple guidelines: The first thing out of your mouth should be a reaction to what you just heard. Laughing or groaning when appropriate will work, as will a comment like, “Nice one!” After that, take a sip of your drink, pass the bong, slap a stranger on the ass; do something. It doesn’t matter what, just take some sort of non-story related action. If you want to be cool, buy the guy or gal who just told a good one, their next drink. Only THEN should you bring up the time you accidentally spray-painted your junk and couldn’t get any for three months because people thought you had Ebola.

Part of being a good story-teller is also being a good listener. Know when to shut your trap and people will feel more comfortable in sharing their most embarrassing or intimate moments with you. Then you can do what I do and post those stories in a blog for everyone to read later.  That’s just a bit of friendly advice from me to you.

-King 0f New York