Do you have friends with schtick?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Something over 20 year ago, my sweetie and I went out with another couple. I knew Lois first as a coworker, and her husband, Frank, helped me get hired into my first engineering position, and he became a coworker. They were long-time married with no kids, we were pretty much newlyweds (barely 2 years) with a newborn.

One evening, we agreed to go out together for dinner.

It was the first time I’d been with the 2 of them together and the first time they’d met my husband. And for whatever reason, as the evening progressed, it became apparent to us that the two of them were doing a routine for us. It was barely disguised banter that sounded not so much rehearsed as frequently repeated. Once we realized this, suddenly, it wasn’t funny, and it became quite uncomfortable.

They weren’t being profane or insulting, either to us or to each other, but it felt like we were intruding in their little private joke. Our attempts to derail the “show” and get back to a normal conversation seemed destined to fail. An otherwise pleasant evening started to stretch out way too long, and we used our baby as an excuse to head home. After all, can’t take advantage of Grandma too much…

We never went out with them again. And I’ve tried to be aware of how we interact with people we’ve just met (sorry, family and old friends just have to take us as we are… :stuck_out_tongue: ) to make sure we don’t slip into schticky routines. After 24 years together, we have lots of private jokes, and more than once, we’ve looked at each other in a given situation and said the same thing at the same time, to our mutual hilarity. Still, if we do that around other people, we make sure to let them in on the joke so they either share the laugh or accept that we’re just a tad peculiar. I truly hope we’re not obnoxious about it.

Pffft - yeah right - us? Obnoxious?!? It is to laugh.

Anyway, have you ever encountered the likes of Lois & Frank? Was friendship strong enough to endure? If not, do you remember where you hid the bodies?? Or, heaven forbid, are you Lois & Frank?? Would you say anything to someone putting on a show for you like that?

2

I don’t quite understand. Do you mean that they couldn’t communicate without it becoming an in-joke for the two of them? I’ve gone out with couples who are overly focused on eachother, but nothing to the extent you describe.

3

When my SO and I meet people as a couple they occasionally ask us if we’re having them on. We say the same things at the same time quite a bit, or reference the same Simpsons episodes without missing a beat. We’ve tried to keep the bursting into song at a minimum, but whenever we do it in private I hiss ‘This is why we don’t get invited out more!’ and beat him about the legs.

It is completely unintentional and occasionally obnoxious, though our best friends are the same way and we manage to carry an amusing 8-10 person conversation in this manner.

4

:confused: Like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?

5

No, it was more like they felt in order to be a “fun” couple, they had to do these routines to entertain us. Except they weren’t so much entertaining as, I don’t know, almost pathetic. Each of them apart from the other was capable of normal conversation and social interaction, but together, not so much.

6

It sounds to me like you’re not so much performing as on the same wavelength. We’re sort of the same way, minus the singing. But I don’t think we deliberately launch in to routines - at least I hope not! If we do, I hope someone makes us aware of it.

7

Yes, Mrs.Phlosphr and I have friends like this. We went out with a buddy of mine from a new job - I had never met his wife and he had never met mine. We went out to this really cool restaurant in Phoenix called the Buttes. It’s on top of a mountain at a Windam Resort. Anyway, we got there and the guy could stop digging on the Buttes name. He kept saying foolish things like "…can’t wait to eat at the Butts…"

Yeah, yeah funny once or twice but after a while it got old. FTR the Buttes is fine dining, it’s not a saw dust saloon by any means.

Anyway, we only saw them that once out to eat…but we had them over a few months later for a party at our home. There were a lot more people around and plenty of people from work…but they did try and latch on us at our own party and not leave us alone at all.

8

I am friends with a couple who like to sing “Happy Birthday” in a different language (I think it was German or Polish) to people on their birthdays.

Every time I see them do this I just want to slap them both, together, at the same time, ala three stooges style.

9

I just met a couple like this! My dear friends had told me I would “love” these people, but they did have this style and delivery that really set my teeth on edge. It wasn’t so much them as a couple, although they certainly played off each other too, but the canned style they used. Ew.

I had to revisit my evaluation of my friends’ judgment.

10

“canned style” - excellent description! In a dented can, no less.

11

Not so much a choreographed-and-practiced routine per se, but we did meet a friends-of-friends couple who had their own habitual interactions that made others uncomfortable.

They had no compunctions about picking fights with each other around friends, neighbors, housemates, people they’d just met, their toddler, etc. They’d really start laying into each other - not screaming or violent (well, not often - they did have one fight when they were living in the basement apartment of our mutual friends’ house that the cops got called for, it was that loud), but nasty and intense. As it got more intense, they’d move away from the group and keep arguing… and then they’d go off into the bedroom and have sex. Yeah, even when they were hosting company at a backyard barbecue at their house; that was our first introduction to them. I’d say I’m glad they moved away so we don’t have any reason to see/avoid seeing them any longer, except I’m worried about what their young daughter is learning about adult, loving relationships.

12

Gah, Ferret Herder, not only were your acquaintances icky, I’ve now got a disturbing mental image of my long-lost friends making the segue from schtick to sex! <shudder>

I’m trying to decide which is worse - a couple sniping at each other, or performing foreplay for the rest of the room.