I love wit and I strive to be witty myself. I see humor in almost every situation. While I, like most people, have a flight, fight, or freeze response to difficult situations, I find that immediately after exiting one of those states, my second immediate response is to laugh. This has placed me into trouble on more than one occasion, and I find that I often need a bit of a filter before either laughing or saying what is currently on my mind.
The humor that pops to mind is not always appropriate. Much of the humor that I enjoy is word-play and the many multiple meanings that sentences in our language can have. Unfortunately, much of that kind of word play involves double (or triple) entendres. I don't mean anything malicious by this kind of humor, but I have learned that I definitely need to filter either my words or my giggles when those sorts of situations arise. This can, unfortunately, lead to a second problem as I now have developed the ability make my humorous comments with a completely straight face, leading people to ask, "Did he mean to say ...?"
In meetings, especially meetings or groups with whom I am comfortable, I tend to act like a bit of a clown. A lot of it is to make people be in a better mood. I love getting to make people laugh. And while I have been told that I am rude (due to my interruptions) or childlike (because of my comments and behavior), many people have commented that I have helped to brighten their day. I don't wish to offend people, and I regret that my humor does seem to alienate certain people (a few personality types in particular), but I would rather enjoy my time with people than spend entire meetings hoping to be alone again.
I also hope that my humor does not make people think that I care about a topic or that I am not taking an issue seriously. I just find that humor helps to disarm tense situations, and the more tense the situation, the more my defensive humor comes to play. I have more than once needed to convince friends that what I was saying was true despite my laughing at the time.
I am not a fan of "low" humor, and am often embarrassed to even see that sort of humor play out around me. Despite my love for humor, this problem makes it difficult for me to watch many current "comedies" which are not much more than people acting stupid. I suppose that makes me a bit of a humor "snob" (and at times a hypocrite), but I find that fact kind of funny too.
So, please remember, if you are unsure if I meant for something to be funny, it was probably meant to make you laugh and to brighten your day. Please join me in the moment and try to find the joy in our world.
The humor that pops to mind is not always appropriate. Much of the humor that I enjoy is word-play and the many multiple meanings that sentences in our language can have. Unfortunately, much of that kind of word play involves double (or triple) entendres. I don't mean anything malicious by this kind of humor, but I have learned that I definitely need to filter either my words or my giggles when those sorts of situations arise. This can, unfortunately, lead to a second problem as I now have developed the ability make my humorous comments with a completely straight face, leading people to ask, "Did he mean to say ...?"
In meetings, especially meetings or groups with whom I am comfortable, I tend to act like a bit of a clown. A lot of it is to make people be in a better mood. I love getting to make people laugh. And while I have been told that I am rude (due to my interruptions) or childlike (because of my comments and behavior), many people have commented that I have helped to brighten their day. I don't wish to offend people, and I regret that my humor does seem to alienate certain people (a few personality types in particular), but I would rather enjoy my time with people than spend entire meetings hoping to be alone again.
I also hope that my humor does not make people think that I care about a topic or that I am not taking an issue seriously. I just find that humor helps to disarm tense situations, and the more tense the situation, the more my defensive humor comes to play. I have more than once needed to convince friends that what I was saying was true despite my laughing at the time.
I am not a fan of "low" humor, and am often embarrassed to even see that sort of humor play out around me. Despite my love for humor, this problem makes it difficult for me to watch many current "comedies" which are not much more than people acting stupid. I suppose that makes me a bit of a humor "snob" (and at times a hypocrite), but I find that fact kind of funny too.
So, please remember, if you are unsure if I meant for something to be funny, it was probably meant to make you laugh and to brighten your day. Please join me in the moment and try to find the joy in our world.
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