Nope.
Could you have picked anyone in the audience to be the target or is Is there something specifically about them that makes the joke work?
Was was the joke prompted by something the target did before the joke was made?
Was the response the target gave in answer to a question you asked?
Was the response of the target gave mid joke always basically the same, such that if they give a different response it wouldn’t have worked?
I couldn’t have picked anyone else — but the only specific thing about them is that they’ve just done something that prompts my line of patter.
The mid-joke response is always basically the same — general encouragement to continue — and I don’t think it’d work if they’d instead reply by indicating that, no, they’re not interested in hearing what I’ve got to say.
Would you tell the joke if there wasn’t an audience besides the target?
Is it possible to tell the joke if it’s just the two of you?
Did the something they did involve another person?
In terms of recreation, was it related to:
sports
travel
gaming
watching scripted or unscripted entertainment
food
Yes.
Yes.
Either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ seems like the wrong answer. Insist and I’ll tell you which one strikes me as less bad, but I think it’d be misleading.
I’d have to say “no.”
Does this take place in a work setting?
I don’t think it needs to — but, as it happens, it always has.
Homing in on the thing the target did to prompt the joke.
Was it a physical action?
Was it something they said?
Was it a particular way they did something?
Was it something they did on purpose?
Was what they did generally regarded as a good thing?
Was what they did generally regarded as a bad thing?
Was it something that most people probably have done today?
Is the lateral thinking part of the question why the target didn’t laugh?
Is it a joke on the person it is being told to?
Something they said, on purpose. Not sure how it’s generally regarded, but I’d wager most people haven’t done it today.
Pretty much, yeah. I mean, what suggested this question to me is that nothing else readily comes to mind when I think of things that I say to someone — without insulting them — that have drawn an expected laugh from others, but never from the person I’m talking to. Struck me as unusual enough to be worth a mention.
I guess this is where the lateral part comes in: yes, but: how am I managing that, given what I said — “if anything, the only person I’m insulting with my remark is, arguably, me” — upthread?
Does this “arguably insulting” remark have to do with intelligence?
Appearance?
Physical capabilities of any sort?
Behavior?
Social skills?
Skills of any other sort whatsoever?
Yes (and, strictly speaking, no to the rest).
So, to be clear: we’re talking about a self-deprecating remark that jokingly implies your intelligence is not as high as you’d like it to be? Is that correct?
I don’t ‘jokingly imply’ something about how high my intelligence isn’t.
Would insulting yourself indirectly insult the person you are telling the joke to?
Are the listeners laughing at you?
Or laughing at the joke receiver?
I’m not sure what you have in mind, here. By ‘indirectly,’ do you mean something like: “I’m talking to a guy who’s the same height as me, and I mention that I’m a given height and therefore stupid, and then I wait as folks realize the other guy is also in that category and so would also be stupid?” Because it’s nothing like that.
But, yes: as far as I can tell, they’re laughing not at me but at the receiver — even though I’m insulting myself, and not by denigrating a category the other guy happens to be in.
And, just to be clear: on the one hand, I’m feeling a little guilty at the thought that this maybe isn’t much of a lateral-thinking puzzle. But, on the other hand: could you do it? Could you walk up to someone, and insult your own intelligence — and only your own intelligence — and reliably get no laughs from them, but only from people who heard you do it?
That strikes me as, y’know, sufficiently weird.
Like, “I’m an idiot, so what does that say about you?”
I solved it. Here is the joke:
In our conversation you’re the second-smartest person, but I’m next to last.