I'm the poor example from which your greatness can be conceived

I may be a comedy ‘fan’ but I find it very difficult to laugh at normal jokes. Not jokes that come up in everyday conversation, not jokes as told by professional stand-ups (although there are some notable exceptions), I mean joke jokes. Proper jokes. The jokes that the ‘wacky’ office colleague tells you while you stand waiting for the kettle to boil, the jokes that your boss tells you when you happen to mention you’re going to see some comedians performing soon and he wants you to think he’s hip. Those jokes. The jokes that may be slightly saucy and a soupson risqué but I’m pretty sure aren’t funny. However, to save time and effort explaining why I’m not laughing and having an awkward social interaction (what don’t I like? AWKWARD SOCIAL INTERACTIONS. This is covered in class Sazz 101 of ‘Sazzology’). This means, that I often have to try and guess where the laughter should be. I don’t mean I’m guessing where the punch line is, I mean I have to try and gauge the exact amount of time I should leave between the punch line being told and when laughter should appear.

The difference of a few milliseconds can make the difference between people either thinking you didn’t really ‘get’ the joke, or thinking that you’re only laughing to humour them (as it were). Fake laughter is an incredibly difficult art form to master in the first place. Let alone fake laughter in the exact right place so that people don’t think you’re laughing at rather than with them.

Of course, the other option available to me is just to groan, tut, lift my eyes to the sky and shake my head with a wry smile. But there are two issues with that. Firstly, it takes longer than just a quick burst of fake laughter and I really don’t like to extend any kind of polite chit chat for longer than I have to; secondly, there’s only so many times you can do that without starting to hate yourself a bit and I use up my yearly quotient at Christmas time when the cracker jokes are being bandied about.

So the fake laughter route I go.

However, as I say, timing is key. And unfortunately I am not the queen of timing. In any way, shape, or form. So the last two days I’ve found myself laughing just a fraction too soon and a fraction too late respectively. I can cope when people tell you a lame joke and they know it’s lame. I just don’t do so well when people are looking at you expectantly for a positive reaction. It’s the same feeling as when you’re listening to music or a film that someone is obsessed with and instead of you being able to enjoy it (or not as the case may be) for what it is, you have to endure people watching you watching (or listening to) it. If anything is guaranteed to suck the fun out of something it is that. The pressure is too immense. And I think that’s why I fret so much about laughing when I’m supposed to laugh at jokes. It’s a give-and-take process. Someone is putting themselves out there just to provide you with entertainment and, as payment, you are expected to reciprocate with laughter. But the right kind of laughter.

Of course, it’s possible that I’m over thinking this a touch. That the only pressure is coming from myself but I can’t help but think, at times like this, am I not just deficient socially but actually afflicted with some type of autism. No-one else worries about stuff like this do they?

Oh well. At least I know when to laugh at Maria Bamford’s efforts. That may just be because she’s awesome personified though.