is more or less one man’s Mortified performance extended to an hour-length show. In the Mortified project, individuals with a flair for the art of comedy and storytelling cathartically share their actual horrific adolescent diary entries, love letters and the like to a wincing audience. Adam Ruben has actually done Mortified, Speakeasy DC, and other movements of that stand-up storytelling genre — so he can tell true tales of what a dork he was in grade school with the best of ’em.

The extra time allows Ruben the chance to really get into the timeline of his dorky childhood, starting with a stream of consciousness journal about his unrequited love for his classmate Liz, a precocious audio diary and home videos singing to his guinea pig. This evolves into a four-page letter analyzing his now humorous, but at the time profound, loneliness. That extra time also means some of the stories tend to drag and some of the journal reading goes on for a few too many entries. With only one person’s story to tell, such glimpses can lose their crispness when not boiled down to their best 7 ½ minutes; some of Ruben’s funniest vignettes are the shortest.

It’s easy to laugh with and empathize with Ruben. If you ever feared the four-person relay at field day, made an earnest list of what you need to assemble a robot (a VCR, one flashlight, four screws), extensively deliberated over a crush and read into fate assigned you the roles of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, respectively in science class, you’ll find laughs here. Most people will be able to see parts of themselves, recalling embarrassing moments of childhood through his eyes.

But you probably didn’t have it as bad as Ruben. “Remember the dorkiest kid in your elementary school?” he asks. “That kid used to beat me up.”

Please Don’t Beat Me Up has four remaining performances: July 9, 17, 19 and 21. Tickets are available online.