Mike Birbiglia's "Error at First Base"

The teenage years in one’s life can be a very difficult time filled with immense amounts of confusion.  In Mike Birbiglia’s “Error at First Base,” he talks about his first kiss while putting a humorous spin on it.  It is extremely amusing because it is very relatable.  He talks about his failed attempt at the amusement park after he got sick.  However, then he meets a girl named Sonya at a high school dance and kisses her during a slow song.  He mentioned that the people in the group that had not kissed a girl were growing smaller and smaller by the day.  Then he started to become embarrassed after he found out that Sonya thought he was a bad kisser, but was comforted by a fellow bad kisser.  I was one of the people in the group that had not had their first kiss yet till very late too.  I was even later.  It was not until around junior year homecoming dance.  It was very easy to relate to the different pressures that Birbiglia faced with having his first kiss.  While I did not have an embarrassing story like vomiting in front of a girl that I was trying to kiss, I was able to relate to it like many others are.  Mike Birbiglia takes an awkward moment in a teenager’s life and he makes it into something that everyone can relate to, while making it funny to address the stresses of being a teenager.

Growing up I was one of the last people to get my first kiss.  I was not quite like Birbiglia, but I had just never kissed a girl.  I went to an all guys school for high school, but there were a bunch of people that knew me there so I could not lie about having my first kiss already.  I was made fun of for a little while but then everyone forgot about it.  It took me so long to finally get my first kiss because there were times when I was not even trying because I kept forgetting that it was something that literally everyone had done before me.  It took me until my junior year homecoming until I kissed a girl.  It can sometimes be difficult to fit-in in high school and many teens struggle with it.  Mike Birbiglia shows the audience how funny the things we do in high school are, while conveying a deeper message in the fact that you are not alone in high school many people are struggling with the same things that you are.

Social status is still big in high school, but he conveys an idea that just being confident will allow you to fit in and give other people an opportunity to show how they are just like you.  When he said he was a just a bad kisser, someone was able sympathize with him and being a bad kisser.  This gave him support and showed him that other people struggle with the same things that he does.  While social status is a big thing while you are a teenager, Birbiglia shows that once you grow up it will not matter how you were viewed or what your social status was when you were in high school.

Kissing for the first time can create many stories that are talked out many years later.  It creates many awkward situations, but it can also cause you to grow up once you get past the awkwardness and it just becomes a funny story.  Once you get past all the pressures of high school and being a teenager you start to realize that certain things you have done earlier in life are just funny.  Mike Birbiglia is able to take an embarrassing story of himself, make it funny, and show people that it really does not matter how you were viewed when you were a teenager.