When Jess meets someone new, they always ask the same question - but it would never happen to someone in a different career

Every time Jess Fuchs is introduced to someone new, she is met with the same four words.

Whether it be on a date or at a dinner party, as soon as people find out her profession, they expect her to perform.

When Fuchs tells people she works in comedy, the same request almost always follows.

"Tell me a joke!"

Given her unrivalled passion for what she does, it's certainly not the worst question to be asked.

Fuchs has been obsessed with comedy ever since she was a kid. It was seeing veteran Aussie comic Carl Barron that cemented her own ambition: she belonged on that stage.

"I remember sitting there and thinking – I can do this," she tells nine.com.au.

In 2014, she turned to Google to look for open mic opportunities and soon found herself waiting in the crowd before taking to the stage for her stand-up debut.

"I obviously knew [comedy] was quite male-heavy. I got there, I had taken a friend with me – we were the only women in the room," she recalls.

"I go on stage, and I fully blacked out because I was so nervous."

The crowd wasn't exactly what Fuchs had hoped for.

One man sat directly in Fuchs' eyeline, wearing a dress with no shorts underneath – a costume he had used as a "comedic bit".

"You know how that used to be a thing men would do where they were like, 'Oh, women's clothing is embarrassing'," she recalls.

"So, I'm up on stage, shaking, staring up this man's skirt, and I'm like, 'This is f---ing terrifying'."

A moment like that might be enough to scare most people off for good. But for Fuchs, the terror began to fade around the four-year mark.

She moved to New York City, still with a passion for comedy, and decided to give stand-up another go.

She found an open mic and made her way to the club. While it wasn't as disastrous as her first time round, it didn't exactly go well.

"That's when I looked to some of the female comedians that I looked up to; Tina Fey, Amy Poehler..." she says.

"The thing they all had in common was they had done improv, and that was a pipeline to bigger things."

So, Fuchs gave improv a go. From there, she never looked back.

She's since journeyed back into stand-up, opening for some major international comedians, performing sold-out shows across the globe, and even hosting her own solo podcast, What The Fuchs.

Despite some setbacks and not-so-successful shows, Fuchs laughs about it all. She explains that she never really let the thought that comedy might not work for her as a career slip into her mind.

"I think all comedians have a degree of psychotic delusion and almost narcissism where they're like, 'Why wouldn't this work?'," She explains.

For Fuchs, the best part of her job is getting to help people connect.

She explains that in a world shifting to online communication a little more every day, it's a special thing to bring a group of strangers into a room together.

"The ability to organically connect with people, get people off their phones, laughing, talking to someone they're sitting next to, and telling stories that 300, 400, 500 people can maybe not relate to, but they can have a laugh. I think that is just such a beautiful quality of humans that we're missing," she says.

"I think the ability to connect is so rare and such a beautiful skill, and it is so validating to me when I get to make a whole room of people laugh, because it's live and it's human and it's giving them endorphins.

"That's just such an awesome thing to both feel but also bestow upon someone else."

But while most of us get to leave our jobs at the office, there's a societal expectation for Fuchs to carry hers wherever she goes.

People hear the word comedian and automatically assume that a person with that title is funny all the time.

Fuchs explains that it just depends on the person; some comedians she knows are funny off stage, and some really hone their craft on paper. But either way, it shouldn't matter.

"I don't always want to have to be like a clown," she says.

"I was at a Thanksgiving dinner the other week, and I was introduced to a room full of people. It was like, 'She's a comedian, and she's gonna tell us jokes'," she recalls.

"I was like, 'He's an accountant. Let's see him do some f---ing math then.' Why should I have to demonstrate my skills? I think that's the dumbest thing ever."

Over the years, Fuchs has developed two strategies to deal with the inevitable question.

The first is to flip it around on the person asking, make them explain their job to put things into perspective.

But the second is a little more cheeky.

There's a big fear when people go to see stand-up comedy that they might get pulled in for some crowd work. Something simple like your name could be turned into a punchline.

But what if you were turned into a punchline and never even knew about it? Well, that's what could happen if you ask Fuchs to tell you a joke.

She explains that sometimes when she's asked the question, she decides to indulge the person out of curiosity in case she can turn the interaction into a bit for her live shows.

"[It's] a sick thing that I shouldn't do, but sometimes I will indulge it," she laughs.

So, next time you meet a comedian, be careful not to treat them like a clown – or you could end up as the punchline.

Produced in partnership with CareerOne.