I really am going to register for the gym today. But first, a blog post.

For our second show, we definitely wanted people to come and watch. (For future reference, this applies to all of our shows. Please come.) One of the traditional, desperate ways to entice people to your show is by handing our flyers.

As a bubbly extrovert who loves meeting new people, chatting to strangers and generally interacting with humanity at large, I love flyering.*

I bagsied the Royal Mile while the other two-thirds of my show, Dan and Alex, covered the environs of our venue and the Grassmarket respectively. I figured the Royal Mile would be an easier place to give out flyers as people there expect it, what with it being always jam-packed with flyererers (and incessant street performance) throughout August.

This turned out to be the flaw in my plan because the sheer number of other people promoting their shows (or working for promoters promoting other people’s shows) made it more difficult to target genuine potential audience – who themselves were mixed in at lunchtime with the unfortunate locals fighting their way briskly through the crowds, making their way back to the drudgery of their desks from the drudgery of Greggs. (I worked in Edinburgh for two years. I have the utmost sympathy for anyone based in the city centre during the Festival.)

Of course, some of the other flyererererers are potential audience members so I did a bit of flyer swapping here and there.

It was during one such exchange that I encountered the Rotter. She was walking up the Mile in a small group of young women.

“Free comedy?” I asked meekly, proffering a flyer for our show.

“I’ll swap,” said the Rotter, holding out her flyer.

“Cool,” I said, taking it and holding my own.

“Nah, don’t want it now,” she said and hurried off, giggling with her friends like this was the cleverest stunt ever pulled. Percy Blakeney must have been in awe.

What a rotter. I could have felt angry. I could have felt cheated. I could have felt embarrassed to have been made to look a fool right at the heart of the Edinburgh Fringe. But then no-one else had noticed and all I could think was what a rubbish thing to do that was.

Not because it was mean. It was, and thoroughly against the imagined spirit of the blah blah blah, but it just rather missed the point of flyering.

We hand out flyers because we want people to come to our shows. (Please come.) Why would I go to her play now? I was standing there, looking at her flyer thinking “Yep, of all the shows currently on, this is the one I’m definitely not going to.” So she’s a flyer down – a flyer her theatre group will have paid for specifically to get people through the door – and I’ve lost nothing. What’s more I have, let’s face it, some social media skillz. I could have been on twitter in seconds, hashtagging my tweet to buggery, declaring her play “One star. An appalling mess. To be avoided.” Or worse: two stars. Not even bad enough to be noteworthy. That would have been most unethical having not actually seen the show but I’ll admit I was tempted.

I shan’t name her play here – I’m just too nice and frankly she doesn’t deserve the exposure.

And anyway, our show an hour later was packed so I think I got the last laugh there.

*In case you don’t know me: this is the opposite of true.

What I learnt today: I’m a nicer person than I thought I was.

Recommended show: Andrew Bird’s Village Fete

Obligatory plug: I’m in Three Man Roast, 2.35pm weekdays and Saturday 20th at Finnegan’s Wake on Victoria Street – free entry. Also at the Amused Moose Comedy Awards Showcase at the Pleasance Dome, 4pm on August 17th (book online).