Mailbag: Insecurity/Jealousy
/Do you have any experience of dealing with insecurity/jealousy(?) when performing for a guy's girlfriend. And what do you think the best way of dealing with that is? I ask because I found a trailer for a new trick recently that really captures that awkwardness on camera.—JM
This email came to me over five years ago, so this “new trick” isn’t exactly new anymore. (Take this as a good example of why you shouldn’t hold your breath waiting on a response from me. But at the same time… don’t ever give up hope!)
The video above is pretty amusing. Even the preview image alone tells a story. Look, I can’t read the guy’s mind, but it certainly comes across as a symphony of annoyed insecurity—or at least discomfort. Lots of raised eyebrows, focus on his drink, and glances across the park. You can almost see his mind working. What would a cool guy do in this situation to show he doesn’t care? Probably drink his drink to show how disinterested he was in what was happening. Yeah. What’s that over there? A blue bicycle with a red seat? Cool, cool, cool.
Here is my advice for everyone in that video.
The Girl
You may need to reconsider this relationship. If your boyfriend feels threatened by a magician, that doesn’t bode well for your future together. It’s going to be a lot of him telling you to cover up at the beach and getting mad at you for hugging your cousin for too long.
The Guy
You were shooting for “aloof disinterest” but the fidgeting and the faces and looking all around isn’t how you express that. In the future, if you’re approached by a magician in the park who wants to show your girlfriend a trick for his magic demo (this seems unlikely to happen a second time, but just in case) here’s how you handle it. Just watch the interaction with a small, self-amused smile on your face. You’re not threatened by the pathetic clown doing tricks for your girlfriend, right? Right. So you’re just going to watch it play out. When it’s done, you say something positive, but underwhelming, like “fun stuff, thanks.” Or, “Clever. Thanks for the show.” Or, “Neat. My nephew did something similar once, I think.”
You don’t want to seem enthused, but you don’t want to seem upset. You want it to feel like your pulse rate was the same the whole time.
The Magician
JM asked if I had any experience dealing with insecurity/jealousy when performing for someone’s girlfriend. Yes. But only when I try and cultivate that. If I sense the guy is a douchebag and the person he’s with is cool, then I don’t mind making him feel small or unimportant by having a somewhat “intimate” exchange with his partner.
For the most part, though, it’s not something I deal with. I’m almost always trying to de-emphasize my confidence and certainty when performing. So I don’t come off like, “Check this out. Pretty cool, right?” My attitude is almost always, “Let’s try this and see what happens.” It’s a totally different vibe.
And unless I want to piss someone off, I wouldn’t perform “for the girlfriend” of a guy who is also there. I’m performing for everyone. The performer in this video is so focused on the girl, it’s not surprising her boyfriend is annoyed. (He only engages the guy once, to tell him to pay attention.)
If you don’t want to risk alienating one part of a couple while performing, here is a technique you can use when doing mentalism. Instead of focusing on the woman and ignoring the guy, if you know the couple has a good connection, or you sense they do, then you can suggest that you’re going to read the one person’s mind through the mind of the second person. So, the woman writes something down or whatever, and then the staging is like this: you’re looking at the guy, and the guy is looking over your shoulder at the woman. You’re going to ask some questions or make some probing statements, and the woman is supposed to respond in her head. The guy is supposed to focus on the woman and you focus on him. And because of their history and connection (or whatever), you’ll be able to sense her responses through him. So it’s just adding a supposed intermediary for your supposed mind reading.
The benefit is that it brings both people into the equation somewhat equally. You’re reading her mind, but your attention is on him. If he is potentially jealous or insecure, then he’s not going to feel like he’s being left out of the equation. Plus, the idea of reading someone’s mind through their connection with someone else is probably more interesting than just, “I’m going to stare at you and tell you what you’re thinking.” How might this one person’s thought get changed or adulterated as it passes through another mind? If nothing else, you’re at least giving the third person something to do besides drink their coffee and stare at the squirrels.