Okay, before I begin, it’s worth mentioning that recently I have discovered that I either feel nothing, or feel too much. There is no in between. It’s not even in a bad way, it’s just my own little unhealthy coping mechanism that I’m going to do nothing about, until I can’t ignore it anymore.

The reason I’m saying this is because yesterday was the first day I felt more than one emotion at once in a long time. Honestly, I’m still finding the whole thing very surreal.

I was excited to see Dan and Phil’s new show, Interactive Introverts. But I was not actively excited. It was more of a nostalgia thing.

I used to watch Danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil back in the day when I was full of teenage angst and felt like the only people who got me were these too emo-haired guys on the internet. And I got less angry and slowly forgot about their existence. (These things happen, okay?)

Then, one fateful day my little sister (She is 12 and wishes I would stop calling her that) came home from school and started talking about them.

I was taken aback, shook and took a brief trip down memory lane. For the next few months, she showed me all the videos I had missed out on. And told me that Danisnotonfire re-branded to Dan Howell. That was the moment I knew I had grown up.

She told me she was gutted because she missed their only tour, and I joined in with her disappointment, until November when they released information about their second tour: Interactive Introverts. I jotted down the time of release and got her VIP tickets for Christmas. (What else are student loans for?)

Yesterday arrived sooner than I thought it would. I don’t usually do my make-up, but I thought ‘Once in a lifetime opportunity here, stop being lazy and get out of bed.’

So I did my make-up and hair all nice, and even painted my nails. The rest of the day was a bit of a blur tbh. One second I was asking Ruby whether she was ready, the next we were sat outside The Lowry, my pale skin getting burnt by the unforgiving sun whist we ate Nutella Donuts. At that point, I was ready to go back to bed. I was daydreaming about the McDonald’s we were going to have for dinner and I could feel the nerves bubbling off of Ruby.

Something in my mind decided to make those nerves worse. I am generally an awkward person to be around, and not the sort of person you’d invite to a difficult Doctor’s appointment.

‘You know,’ I smiled at Ruby, ‘Dan and Phil are in that very building in front of us.’ Ruby just looked at me, her eyes spread wide. I should have got the hint to shut up, but I continued. ‘I think they’re in the roof.’

She face-palmed. Like, literally face-palmed. ‘No,’ She said. ‘They’ll be in their dressing room. I want to die right now.’

I frowned at her. ‘That would be the obvious place for them to be. But think about it, if I was nervous about performing a show, I would go pace in a place nobody would suspect. And that place is the roof.’

She just tutted and carried on looking worried. We were called into the theatre to queue up for the meet and greet.

A very nice man gave us our wristbands and explained the process. When he was gone, I began feeding off Ruby’s nerves again. ‘You know Doobs, I reckon they’re in that room there.’ I said, pointing upwards. I don’t know why I said it. I think it’s because I was starting to get nervous too.

I mean, I’m generally a nervous person and I was in a room full of teenage girls who were emitting nerves like they some sort of floating hormones. I only received a glare in response. Ruby gets talkative when she’s anxious, she started to talk about school and maths and friends. I nodded and commented occasionally, but I was starting to feel sick. I didn’t even know why. I’m not particularly a huge fan. Maybe it was just the way everyone else was feeling rubbing off on me, but it was the most horrible, yet thrilling thing I’ve ever experienced.

Next we were shown up some stairs, where security checked our bags. I only had a small handbag with me, and I opened it up for them to peer into. The lady asked me to open ‘that’ and by ‘that’ I assumed she meant my purse. I picked it up and began to open it before she tutted and said ‘No.No.No. The zip on the bag.’

I said, ‘Oh sorry.’ and hoped that brief bit of embarrassment would be the only shame I would put myself through.

But this lady just kept going on and on, saying over and over: ‘Why would I check that?’ and ‘That’s none of my business.’ It felt like the longest bag check in the history of security. Honestly, she was probably just being friendly and it only lasted 30 seconds but I already felt like I wanted to die.

We had to wait a little longer, and I saw a man rowing on Manchester Thames and started cheering him on. I have no idea why anxiety affects me so much, but I seem to go from a somewhat-mentally-stable-21-year-old to a completely-insane-10-year-old. I have no idea why I’m like this.

Finally, we were shown into the room where the mythical creatures of Youtube were. I was ready to have a full on break down, and to make things worse I didn’t even know why. I wasn’t even that hyped for this. I had never felt so many emotions at once and it’s like my brain malfunctioned. I don’t even remember what me and Ruby talked about.

We saw Phil first. Now, I have trouble deciding what pizza topping I want, so it’s not in my nature to have a favourite anything.

But… Phil is my favourite Youtuber. *Hides behind Eeyore blanket* I love Dan too but I don’t know, I feel like I want so much more AmazingPhil content. His live streams really make me smile, and I genuinely believe that he would get into The Good Place.

So, when we saw the back of his head stick out from behind the big temporary wall thing they had, I went from excited to just plain giddy. I don’t even know, but Ruby and I just shared this big goofy grin.

Then we saw Dan’s head, and I saw Ruby inwardly explode. Dan is her favourite, and for a moment I wanted to pause. It was probably one of the only times in my life where everybody around me was completely happy. Ruby is a big ball of puberty at the moment and I don’t recall the last time I saw her genuinely smile.

And then it was our turn to go behind the temporary wall of joy. I made Ruby go first, I wanted to see her reaction to meeting her heroes. As I went around the corner, I could feel my face flush bright red.

Why?

I don’t know. I hadn’t embarrassed myself, yet I found the fact that my face was going crimson embarrassing. WHY WAS I BLUSHING? Damn it, Lucie.

At least they were tall, so I could just talk to their chests which would theoretically stop me from jumping out the window because of awkward eye contact.

The hugs were great, but I think that’s purely because I’m not a hugger. They were pretty much hugs that said ‘Thank you for coming and being a fan, but to us, you personally mean nothing.’ Which I actually prefer to soppy, emotional hugs that I’m forced into by family members and friends.

I had prepared a surprise question for them to sign. It’s a good thing I had written it down too, because my mind had completely gone and at this point I was basically a ginger mop.

If you were an alien and came to spy on people, what would you disguise yourself as? 

I don’t know what I expected. Maybe just them to pause to think about their answers, or to look shocked at the unexpected question. Alas, the sadistic devil on my shoulder was disappointed and they handled the question well. They didn’t tell me their answers, they just wrote them down. Which is a shame, because I want to have a deep debate about it.

I mean, I think a dog would be an obvious candidate for alien’s to spy on us. But I think they’d be like ‘Right. Let’s disguise ourselves as a shiba.’ And then they’d see another breed and be like ‘Woah. No, I want to be a pug.’ And then they’d see another breed and be so overwhelmed by the cuteness that they’d never actually make a decision.

And a cactus would be good. Except the alien would end up dead as cacti are surprisingly easy to accidentally murder.

Dan asked us if we wanted a selfie, so we got one each. A nice one, and a silly one. The thing is, despite the strange bag search and my red face, I hadn’t done anything that made me want to die.

That part of me clicked when it came to selfie time. Ruby was next to Dan, and I was between her and Phil. Phil is tall, like a giant penguin, so he leaned forward to fit into the photo. For some reason, I leaned forward too, meaning I was head height with my 12 year old sister. This somehow felt wrong, and a little strange, but instead of standing straight again, I decided to step backwards.

Onto Phil’s foot,

in Doc Martens.

It was one of those scenarios where we both knew it happened, and for some reason, I was too awkward to apologise, and he was too polite to say anything.

So, I seemed rude and my face went red and suddenly jumping out of the window seemed like a good idea.

And basically that was the end of the meet and greet. Dan said ‘Thanks for coming.’ and we left, completely dazzled.

I had a beer and Ruby had a coke while we waited for the show to get started. We talked for ages about how nice and lovely they were, and honestly at this point I couldn’t get over the amount of feelings I’d experienced in one hour. My brain still hadn’t returned from planet Lucie, meaning I thought it was a good idea to spend £180 on merch.

I want to talk about the show itself, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, so I’ll keep that to myself. All I’ll say is that if you get the chance, it is defo worth going.

I didn’t know what to expect, how could Youtubers do a live performance? My mind is blown at the creativity and effort that has gone into the production. I’m not the type of person that thinks ‘Oh, those people are cool. I want to be friends with them.’ But the show made me actually want to socialise with them as people.

Just like in a coffee shop, discussing alien disguises or something. I don’t know.

Just go see it.