Do people get mad when you don't laugh?

Post Reply New Topic

Sometimes people will attempt to make a joke, and because it's not funny, I won't laugh. What I find remarkable is that these people will often get agitated as a result. They say things like: "hey I'm trying to tell a joke, help me out here!" or: "You have no sense of humor!"

I don't understand these kind of responses at all. If you tell a joke and it's not funny, how am I the one with no sense of humor if I don't laugh? If you can't tell a funny joke, doesn't that make you the one with no sense of humor? Also, why would you want me to laugh at you're joke just to make you feel good about yourself? Don't you want me to be honest about whether or not your joke was funny? Personally, I want to know if I am really funny or not, because I can only learn to be funny through honest feedback.

Anyone else experience this?

yeah, i wouldn't force myself to laugh (my fake laugh is obvious), especially not to boost some guy's ego.

more often they get mad when i DO laugh...

I don't force myself to laugh but I have the opposite problem. I laugh because something's funny when the person is being serious & they get upset at me for it.

I'll laugh if I find something funny or amusing, if something falls flat then I might stone face but nobody has called me out over it. I think the other person more times than not might feel self-conscious about it or maybe they're just secretly cursing me on the inside I dunno. I'm use to awkward.

This used to be a big problem with me when it came to customer service. I had to slowly learn how to force a laugh that sounded natural. They would tell stupid repetitive jokes like "working hard or hardly working?" or "It's free right?" and look expectantly at me. I would keep a neutral expression. Then they'd threaten to go report me for being "rude".

Often, I am told off for laughing and not laughing, depending on the situation and where I am.

People don't usually get mad when I don't laugh although they seem to act weird when I do laugh, which is usually at something they aren't aware of, like something funny in a book I'm reading. Sometimes I laugh out loud just thinking about something funny. That makes people act as if I'm some kind of criminal.

I've noticed on YouTube someone will make a nasty, racist joke and when someone takes offense they go on, "It's just a joke" and accuse them of having no sense of humor. I once replied that there's a difference between a mutually funny joke and just being cruel and malicious.

they get pissed off and they tell me that I don't have a sense of humour.

I think people may be trying to be sarcastic when they say stuff like that. That's how I have interpreted it anyway.

No one is qualified to say that anyone has no sense of humour, because they have not observed the person throughout their entire life to know that they have never found anything funny.

I often wonder how often people laugh just because they are expected to from social politeness rather than because they really find something funny. For example, why do so many TV comedies feel that they need a fake audience laugh track - if they were truly funny then surely people wouldn't need to be cued by a bunch of people who aren't even there?