Audience of One

J is for Joker

There aren’t many people who don’t have senses of humour, and of course I’m not one of them. Finding things funny doesn’t necessarily equate to making people laugh though. I like making people laugh.

Round the meal table I’m almost never serious. (Come to think of it, it’s not just at the meal table that I’m hardly ever serious.) My brain is constantly, without me even directing it consciously, looking for jokes and laughs in everything that’s said. It’s rubbed off on my brother too, and he’ll often get the jokes in first.

I could never be a comedian. I’m not funny enough, nor do I really have enough material. I can, however, be the joker in almost any group that I’m in – often at inappropriate moments by accident as well. There’s also very few people who share some parts of my sense of humour, so when I’m with people who don’t I get funny looks.

One of the things that I do a lot is to play devil’s advocate, or deliberately reveal “truths”, or argue heatedly about something which means very little. Often a whole conversation someone has with me, seemingly on equal terms, will involve me revealing nothing about what I really think. It’s all a joke, and I’m just playing for responses. I joke around in conversations not just in an obvious, up-front way, but in ways that no-one notices but me (and occasionally others in on the joke). That’s another reason I’d never be a comedian – too many of my jokes are for me or those who share my sense of humour only.

This is one of the reasons that people don’t think of me as a joker – they don’t notice. I’m never mean or spiteful about it, but most of the time people just don’t notice that I’m doing it. They’ll always figure it out at some point, but it’s often hours or days later.

There’s another side of this that does involve other people that I’ve made reference to already – that of deliberately revealing things that aren’t true. Not in a sense of lying for personal gain but letting people tease me for something untrue and playing up to it. The first time I really noticed this was when members of a particular forum I helped run decided that I had an unhealthy obsession with ducks. At first, I denied it, but subsequently played up to the rumour without ever actually stating anything to confirm or deny it. (Unfortunately it’s now four years later and I still hear it mentioned occasionally.) It’s happened again recently in relation to a particular fictional character and the actress who plays her, and also in smaller situations such as me “admitting” that the reason I wasn’t going punting is because I’m petrified of the water.

Does any of this make sense to you? Just accept it if it doesn’t, because this is how I am, though it may not be visible on this site. If you ever find an entry completely incomprehensible though, I was probably trying to be funny and failing rather publically. I probably wouldn’t care, either. As James Thurber said: “The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself”. I’m certainly good at the latter.

Matthew @ 11:11, June 25, 2005 to ABC | Comments (2)