Singles Night at the Comedy Club

Or why I will never find love on reality TV.

By Evan Rossi 

Illustration by Isabelle Oh

I recently applied to be cast on the next season of Love Island USA. Ever since I saw the genuine, everlasting look of love in the eyes of Season 7’s Amaya and Bryan upon winning the show (and $100,000), I knew I would do whatever it takes to become America’s next sweetheart. Eighty-seven questions later—including, “What is the most difficult thing you have ever been through?”—I submitted the application for the rest of my life.

To be honest, I don’t think it would be very hard for me to win Love Island. If reality TV dating while in bikinis and Speedos is anything like dating in the real world, then I’m a shoo-in for the grand prize. I’m so tall that I barely fit in the gondola cars that I take up the slopes in Gstaad. There are so many likes on my Raya profile that I get overwhelmed just looking at the app icon. All the older ladies at my bathhouse tell me I’m the most handsome man they’ve seen since Marlon Brando. It’s a wonder that I’m still single.

This week, I got tired of staring at my body in the mirror and decided to check out a singles night held at a comedy club in the Village. The organizers titled the event “Laugh Island” and promised a series of stand-up comedians with a mixer to follow. When I first saw the flyer, the connection to Love Island immediately caught my attention. Maybe this was my chance to meet the show’s producers and prove how much they needed me next season. I could just envision the talent scouts taking me aside in the Greenwich Village Comedy Club and signing me right then and there. 

With romantic visions of my imminent fame dancing in my mind, I traveled down to the club with my friend Brian on a quiet Thursday in February. Brian and I have a proven track record of superior wingmanship and amorous shenanigans. During our semester abroad, we picked up the nickname “The Blues Brothers of Dublin.” Together, we’ve mastered the fake phone call, the long-lost cousin, and the hero in a burning building. On the night of the show, we were both single and raring to mingle.

We found the entrance to the club beneath a large hanging sign advertising falafel and down a series of stairs covered with ice and gray sludge. The interior was straight out of a horror movie. The lights were dimmed low; shadows crept from corners and spilled onto beer-stained tables; the sound of my voice curled up and died amid the heavy drapes drooping from the walls. Despite the chills running down my spine, I was delighted when we were seated directly adjacent to the stage. Enough light would spill onto us that it would be impossible for the producers to miss my perfectly groomed goatee. We ordered two Guinnesses and surveyed the rest of the poor, unfortunate singles in the club. 

Soon after being seated, the event’s organizer, a young micro-influencer comedian named Vivi, began passing out colored stickers. She explained that a green sticker meant “Taken,” an orange sticker meant “Single,” and a yellow sticker meant “Complicated.” Naturally, I took the yellow. 

Brian and I struggled to make conversation with the girls at our table. First, several of them were taken. Second, none of the single ones were my type: tall and thin but curvy, with curly hair and a dad with an estate in Greenwich, still a virgin, willing to cook me chocolate chip pancakes whenever I want, and walk my geriatric dog, Buster, when he needs to go out every night at 3 a.m. to pee.  

My night took a turn for the worse when the comedians began their sets. I groaned after thirty seconds of the first one—an Epstein joke. They continued to lampoon some of America’s foremost heroes: Trump, Eric Adams, and Mike Lindell. What’s more, comedian after comedian used my proximity to the stage as an excuse to lay into me. One asked me why I was wearing a yellow sticker. “I don’t know what I want,” I replied innocently. She called me “toxic”—the worst insult I’ve received since my fourth-grade nemesis coined the nickname “Bossy Rossi.”  

Two hours later, we were quickly shepherded out of the club as the next show was set to begin. Brian and I left with no singles mixer, no talent scouts, and a bill for 65 dollars for four beers. We climbed the steps back into the frigid night on MacDougal Street. 

I turned to Brian as my breath became vapor in the air. “Maybe love is dead.”