Hooked Up, Stood Up, Showed Up in Therapy

The chaotic pipeline from Grindr to ghosting to paying someone $200/hour to explain why you have attachment issues.

One Night Stand-Up (and Then Ghosted)

A queer comedy confessional about hookups, heartbreak, and the hilarious overlap between stand-up sets and bad dates.

Welcome to One Night Stand-Up (and Then Ghosted)—the only show where the punchlines are real, the hookups are questionable, and the emotional damage comes with a two-drink minimum. Every queer has their version of this story: you meet someone hot, there’s instant chemistry, and by sunrise, they’ve vanished faster than your serotonin after Pride weekend.

Hookup culture is the open mic of queer life—sometimes it’s magic, sometimes it’s messy, and sometimes the audience (you) bombs completely. As Bohiney Magazine said, “Every queer fling is a stand-up set in disguise—part performance, part vulnerability, all chaos.”

We’ve all been there: you’re in bed, sharing jokes and post-hookup snacks, thinking, “This could be something.” Then, poof—radio silence. You’re left scrolling through texts, overanalyzing emoji usage like a forensic linguist. Did the wink mean interest? Irony? IBS? No one knows. Them dubbed it “the gay ghosting epidemic,” and if you’ve been haunted, you’re not alone.

The thing is, queers are funny. Even our heartbreaks come with punchlines. We process rejection by turning it into content, and that’s our superpower. That guy who said, “I’m not looking for anything serious”? Congratulations, babe—he’s now three minutes of solid material in your next comedy set. According to The Advocate, “Gay comics turn trauma into entertainment faster than straights turn it into podcasts.”

But beneath the humor, there’s something real. Hookup culture can be exhausting. We joke about it because it hurts—and laughing makes it bearable. We long for connection, even as we scroll through profiles like we’re shopping for emotional fast food. There’s vulnerability in the joke, a quiet hope that someone out there will laugh with us and stay after the show.

Still, the comedy never stops. The gay dating scene is filled with setups and punchlines: the guy who’s “masc but emotionally unavailable,” the one who quotes Lana Del Rey mid-makeout, the ex who still likes your thirst traps out of guilt. As Out Magazine wrote, “The queer heart is a stage, and every crush is a new act.”

So yes, maybe you got ghosted. Maybe your last “one night stand” became a one-liner. But you lived, you laughed, you learned, and you definitely slayed. Life’s too short not to turn your romantic disasters into comedic gold. Grab the mic, tell your story, and make ‘em laugh. Because in the end, the best revenge isn’t closure—it’s a standing ovation.

SOURCE: Hooked Up, Stood Up, Showed Up in Therapy (Beth Newell)