Nathan Timmel’s comedy show has been known to make you fall in love with him.

Well, that at least happened once. After one of his shows in Cedar Rapids in the early 2000s, Timmel got a message on Myspace. It was from a girl who was in the audience.

That led to messages and phone calls. And long-distance dating.

“Next thing you know, I’m living in the corn state,” Timmel said. He moved from Wisconsin to be with her.

Now the comedian lives in Iowa City with his wife and their two kids.

This kind of love story begs the question: What did Timmel say on that stage to impress that girl so much?

“I don’t remember any of the jokes,” he says now.

It wasn’t so much about the jokes, anyway, but the stories Timmel told about his life.

That speaks to his comedy style, which involves finding “the absurdity in everything from making babies to overcrowded prisons,” as he writes on his website.

“It was just a given,” he said. “I thought talking about my life and experiences would be way more interesting than what’s up with traffic or airline food.”

But it took time for Timmel to figure out he wanted to be a comedian.

“I got a degree in English, which meant I was basically unemployable,” he said. “So it’s like, well, what am i going to do with my life now?”

While he was living in Milwaukee, he decided to try out an open mic night. His first time telling jokes, he says, was a hit.

“I got up on stage and I did really well,” he said. “And then I bombed the next couple times. But that one good experience was all the ego boost I needed.”

He kept going. Twenty years later, Timmel has recorded six albums, been a guest on the “Bob & Tom Show,” and performed at comedy clubs around the country. He also has performed for American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Over the last year or so, without shows, Timmel’s No. 1 job was being a stay-at-home dad.

He also put his English degree to use by publishing a crime thriller titled “We are 100.”

“I have all these thoughts in my head and the ones I can make funny I say on stage,” he said. “The thoughts I can’t make funny, I turned them into this book.”

Timmel also blogs about his favorite cartoons or fatherhood or Facebook’s “dangerous cancel culture.”

All that to say, Timmel talks about all sorts of things on stage. And he’s not just concerned with being funny.

“In my mind, it’s a break from life,” he said. “A lot of people in the audience have real problems. So the hope is whatever’s going on, they can take a break from that for 90 minutes.”

And that means trying not to divide the audience with much talk about politics, for example.

It was at a show at Loonees Comedy Corner in Colorado Springs, where Timmel performs this weekend, that he says he got the best compliment of his career.

After the show, one audience member told him, “I can tell you’re a great Republican. I like that.”

Another said, “You voted for Obama, didn’t you? That’s great.”

“In my mind, I’m like, I nailed it,” he said. “Because everyone leaves happy.”

“I thought talking about my life and experiences would be way more interesting than what’s up with traffic or airline food.”

Nathan Timmel