Stand-up comedian uses boyfriend's personal story onstage without telling him, is surprised he is hurt: 'Is it just something you accept when dating someone who does comedy?'

I know a lot of comedians. It's a world that I often find myself in, so I've learned how they tick. Comedians can be fickle creatures. They might seem confident and self-assured because they know how to present themselves in a way that makes people laugh, but that doesn't always translate to real-world relationship skills. Sometimes they need extra assurance if they're not getting it onstage. So dating a comedian can come with a lot of potential pitfalls. With some comedians, it can be hard to tell when they're joking and when they're being real. So much of their work is likely based on their own experiences, so the two worlds can mesh in a way that can be unsettling if you're not used to it. Plus, there's the added layer of weirdness of being used for material.

Artists of all kinds use their lives and the people around them in their art. In my mind, it's part and parcel of being an artist. There would be no art if there were no well to draw upon. The best artists know how to take the real world and translate it into something new and relatable. But if you're the person in the artist's life and you're being used for material, you might feel some type of way about it. You might feel like you're being taken advantage of, or like the person in question doesn't really care about you but just wants to use your stories. That's a tricky situation but not an uncommon one. That's what was starting to come up in the burgeoning relationship between these two folks, and they were both trying to make sense of it. Read on for what others had to say.