Everyone goes to a party, wedding, bar mitzvah, or cult meeting at some point in their lives. And sure, you may know how to properly hold your glass/suspicious plastic cup/beer mug correctly, but that doesn’t mean anything. All that gets you is the label of “that guy over there who can really hold his beverage container well.” While that may get you some “action,”, as it is referred to, you will be quickly forgotten. The true secret to being the Popular Witty Guy (a.k.a. The Alpha Party Dude) is the ability to tell a story or anecdote properly at a social function. Though to the lay-partier it seems easy, it is in fact a careful art. For you beverage cup wallflowers out there, I will give you the secrets to proper storytelling procedure.

The Beginning

The beginning of a story is crucial because a sloppy or boring start will quickly cause listeners to disengage their attention and instead search for the keg. It has to be a good setup, which if successful makes the listeners feel as if they’re watching the story unfolding in real time. I’ve found that a tried-and-true starter is

“So there I was, right?”

Simple enough, right? There exists not a story that can’t be begun with those five words. When you say it, your audience will immediately respond with an enthusiastic chorus of “yeah” or “right, right,” and wait anxiously for the surely high-quality story coming. This beginning is always effective and, like many of the tactics I will describe to you, becomes more effective as the keg empties.

So you’re off to a good start on the road to party fame. But this is just the beginning. You need several other parts to make it a complete package (heh heh).

The Quantity Factor

There has never been a good story that didn’t involve a number. Example: “I drank (enter number) beers, then threw up all over the Batman towel, then drank (enter larger number) more!” Now imagine that without numbers. He drank beer, threw up, and then kept drinking. For all you know he could be a lightweight that got wasted off a single Nattie Light.

The number is also a key part of the story. This is where you quantify how awesome or “hardcore” you are. But it’s tricky: if you aim too low, you’ll be viewed as an exaggerating chump, but if you go too high, you’re a lying airbag. So how do you find that happy medium? I also have the answer to this question. I call it:

“The Arbitrary 8”

Eight is my favorite arbitrary number. It can be used in any situation, regardless of accuracy or relevance. Example: “I saw I, Robot yesterday. There were like 8 robots in it.” This brings about laughter from those who either appreciate your dry understatement or find your witty inaccuracy irresistible. Either way they laugh with you, and your story is rolling, unlike Limp Bizkit.

But you also have to say a memorable line because it is how your story will be referred to and will become synonymous with your reputation. This brings me to:

The Outrageous Statement

Also important, this is the trickier part of the story. It must relate to the story, yet have a direct reference to something that has nothing at all to do with the story and would (under normal circumstances) make people wonder “Where the hell did that come from?” A good example would be “So I was like ‘Well, I’d better take up cannibalism so she doesn’t ruin my life!’” This model works for several reasons: cannibalism is funny, and it’s outrageous. Not outrageous like the number kind, where you can lose an audience due to a poor choice, but in that it’s weird and probably offensive (outrageous statements are best when they involve something offensive).

You would do well to carefully craft the Outrageous Statement, since it will become a popularly uttered catchphrase for the whole event, and possibly the next day.

Now as your story continues, you must avoid the blunders I am about to tell you about. Failure to avoid them could result in the total collapse of your story and possibly your relegation to beer wench for the rest of the night.

Blunders

Excessive Emotion
Keep yourself calm. It’s okay for your audience to become rowdy and wild, but you must stay cool or else your story derails and becomes just a lukewarm chuckle-inducer. Keeping your emotions in check also allows you to inflect your voice to indicate sarcasm, do better voice impersonations of people, and pull off facial expressions more effectively. These are minor things that have a great impact on the overall excellence of your story, so be sure to be the calm one in the sea of semi-drunken onlookers.

Excessive Swearing
Swearing to an extent is usually necessary in a good, funny story. But if you use it too often or in the wrong places, the words will lose their flavor, and when you roll one out as a humor-enhancer at a crucial point, it will fall flat. Interest in you will quickly decline. Too much swearing will also get you labeled a mere foul-mouth, a label which is difficult to shed when you try to regain credibility.

Excessive Lies
Everyone makes up some part of the story to make it better. This is not only permissible; it is encouraged, but be careful. If you make up too many things, someone will either recognize your story and point out that it didn’t happen that way (destroying your story and believability) or will simply pick up on the artificiality of your details. The key is to make your lies either very plausible so no one will dare question you or impossible to verify, so that someone may want to call you out but won’t because they have no means of disproving you.

So that is how you tell a proper story at a social function. When I see you at a party, carnival, or last rites, I will be able to see how much you’ve grown in your ability and shed tears of joy (or beat the hell out of you for stealing my routine and killing my popularity).