You don't look like your Tinder profile
Cut past the most tiresome improv scene initiation of the 2020s by getting straight to the second date.
My wife and I have been together over a decade. I haven’t been on a second date since maybe 2011. So, take what follows with a lick of salt. But what a dating world we have now, amirite? I have no idea if I’m ‘rite’ (Amirite? Please, I must know if I’m right).
Now online-dating is fully and rightly established as the primary way to find love, rather than the niche pursuit it was when I was trying and failing through my teens, a new stock improv scene initiation has emerged.
Settle into two chairs in a restaurant, set down the menu and off we go:
‘You don’t look like your Tinder profile’.
Very fun. Your date has turned up and they’re crazy! They look nothing like their profile picture and they probably behave weird too. Except then what can we do? The grounded thing is to end the date, and therefore the scene. That was a hilarious 5 seconds!
Wait, our teammate on the backline is here to help…sort of, with a zany waiter. Quick argument with the chef and/or Maitre D’, then sweep. That was a hilarious 15 seconds!
Far better to start with a second date. The grounded reality of a second date has more potential to play an improv scene from.
Nobody was so weird on the first date that they didn’t secure a second, or to the extent that it’s an immediate scene-ender. We liked each other enough to see each other again.
You’ve already done the basic introductions and biographical details like asking names, jobs, and family that make for super boring improv in the unseen first date. You now have a reason to ask about the next level detail: the stuff you’ve been thinking about since date one. And to do so in a way that establishes information, rather than just asking open questions. Better to say: ‘So, did you confront your Dad about him not letting you drive his monster truck yet?’ than ‘So, what are your hobbies?’.
There’s still enough the characters don’t know about each other to make genuine fun discoveries in the scene. Two people who are casually acquainted, trying their best to get along and willing the situation to work is invariably very funny. At the very least, it’s intriguing watching two characters find the range of acceptable behaviours in the other.
Better still, choose a nondescript reliable chain restaurant to set it in. In the UK, this is probably something like a Wahaca, Wagamama or Franco Manca. Maybe an Ivy Brasserie to go a bit higher-end and make a good impression (Amirite? PLEASE, tell me if I’m right).
Either way, the food has already arrived and it’s fine. The service is friendly and unobtrusive. We don’t need to get distracted from the important stuff by talking about either. Instead we can build a solid scene about the characters themselves.
We can start mid-meal. One script-writing maxim is to join a scene after it starts and leave it before it finishes. We can do the same in improv. On a show-level, improv gods TJ and Dave talk about how their characters exist before they inhabit them and continue to exist after the show ends. TJ and Dave are really good at improv. Be more like them.
Ultimately, a dating scene is a perfectly great place to set an improv scene. It’s relatable to a vast majority of your audience (again, amirite? PLEASE). It’s a place where two people talk to each other about each other, and where they’re trying to get-along. Whether they succeed or not is the fun of the scene.
A second-date scene has literal ‘table-manners’ ways of behaving that can set a really helpful basis for whatever unusual behaviour or point-of-view we actually want to explore. A first date has too many variables. Unless it’s a direct pull from an opening: ‘You don’t look like your Tinder profile’ is kicking us off in crazy-town way too early. We’ll spend too much time establishing the basics, no doubt quite wacky basics, given we’re likely playing the top of a scene from quite a nervous headspace.
If we choose to know each other and to like each other, we can still explore the fun of unmet expectations in a second-date. In fact, it’s probably even funnier when the weird stuff only emerges on date two, when there’s a reason to stay, rather than an immediate reason to leave.
Anyway, see you at Wahaca. Amirite?