Dumbass Sayings: “You Had To Be There”

When some guys at work are telling you about how they ran a train on a semi-conscious hooker the other night they usually say “You had to be there, man!” Really? I had to be there? Well if that’s the case then why even bring it up? Because I couldn’t have been there. It already happened and I wasn’t there. I don’t have a time machine to go back and be there so that makes everything you said pointless. If I HAD to be there then just don’t even mention anything. “You had to be there” is what someone says when they don’t have the vocabulary or ability to use words to paint an adequate picture of a situation. Yeah either I had to be there or maybe you need to work on your narrative storytelling skills. Unless you can recreate a scenario in vivid enough verbal detail to allow me to enjoy it without being there, then don’t even mention it, Rick. Imagine if every novel was just one page long and said “You had to be there…” If you bought a book that said that on the first page and the rest of the pages were blank you’d demand your money back. You wouldn’t think “Oh yeah I guess I missed out…” You’d realize it was a ripoff and that it was the storyteller’s fault.

When you say things like "You had to be there" don't be surprised when you have to threaten to eat people when they're losing interest in your story.