No truer words were ever said. Laughter is good for the soul…not necessarily someone else’s soul but definitely your soul.
To the OP… try to lighten up. Sounds to me like you’re spending a lot of energy judging the behavior of other people when you could be directing that energy toward being a more happy person.
Not at all what I was implying. What I meant was that I laugh much more now because I used to be quite stressed, so perhaps I laugh more than someone who didn’t have a rough life (or, in my case, a hard time dealing with what life dished out to me). I loosened way, way up because of it. I’m not saying at all that if you don’t laugh you will get ulcers. My skin has always been fantastic, so I’m not sure where that comes into the equation (except maybe that some people have different physical reactions to stress?)
I’m still not sure what your problem with laughing people is, or with people who laugh at things that you don’t think are funny. It’s not their problem. It’s yours.
I haven’t seen Lost in Translation, and so I cannot comment on it. Why do you get upset with people who have different tastes than yours?
People who are never amused, what’s their problem? A chronic case of the tightass will put you into an early grave and make you unpopular to boot.
I’m a goofy laughing type, or at least I’ve grown into one. I was never as badly off as Ana and Wesley, but I used to be fairly uptight. Till I realized that you can either take everything seriously all the time or relax and laugh at the inherent ridiculousness of life. Life is ridiculous, you know, so you might as well go on and laugh. The thing about laughter is that it tends to feed on itself–the more you laugh, the more you see the humor in things.
And contrary to Beware of Doug’s post, most of the easily amused people I’ve known over the years would absolutely crack up at witty repartee, just as much as they would at fart jokes. Lowering the bar for what you find amusing doesn’t mean you’ve also lowered the ceiling on what you find amusing, you know.
I’m only easily amused by my cats.
I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that they are so easily amused, or that I am so amused by their amusement.
I laugh a lot, and at a lot of different things. But, I just don’t find little things like commercials all that funny. There are a few, but the ones they show in the movie theater before the movie just aren’t funny.
I’ve been accused of being tightly wound, so maybe that’s it. I also have to move if anyone near me is eating popcorn or anything with wrappers. haha. Now, that’s kind of funny. 
{quote=fishbycicle]So, I also have to wonder. If the people she works with are able to bust a gut over the most mundane turn of phrase, what would happen to them if they were exposed to comedy?
[/quote]
It all depends. I was a giggler in college and grad school. (I’m not sure that I wouldn’t be now in similar situations but I can’t remember the last time I really got the giggles like I did for a while). I giggled my way through so much of more than one musical production that total strangers were talking about the girl who giggled.
But, tell me a deliberate joke. I don’t laugh. I may see the humor, but I probably won’t giggle. Expose me to a funny movie, I probably won’t laugh- especially if I find some of the humor offensive or obnoxious (I’m not found of fart jokes, for example).
But say something just right, tickle my imagination and I giggle. Or better yet, you giggle. I’ll giggle back.
I have a friend who, like me, is a fairly hardcore cinephile, so we’ll run into each other fairly often at screenings that are unusual, esoteric, “arty”, or rare.
He laughs at everything (giggles actually) and it drives me nuts.
He not only laughs at things that I don’t find funny, but that nobody else in the theater finds funny. Probably 1/3 of the time he’s laughing (giggling, :shudder: ), he’s laughing all by himself. Nobody else is laughing.
And the thing is, not only does he laugh at things that nobody else finds funny, but he also laughs at things that were clearly not even meant to be funny. Suspenseful moments. Dramatic moments. Even static moments. I don’t remember a minute ever going by when I didn’t hear a giggle (or titter, :shudder: ) from him. And I don’t go to what are generally considered “bad” movies. This isn’t lowbrow humor or juvenile humor or eye-rolling humor–this is no humor!
And still he laughs.
Which is why I always sit where I want to, agreeing that we’ll meet up afterwards. But since I sit in the front, I always hear the giggles from behind me. Giggles, especially continual ones, alone in a vacuum are incredibly distracting and half-the-time, I’m inclined to skip the show, it’s that bad, but often it’s the only screening of its kind in the City or the West Coast or North America or somesuch, so I deal.
But I’ve always wondered whether he notices (needless to say, I wouldn’t know how to ask him this without letting on that his laugh drives me bonkers, so it’s best left alone).
Archive Guy, is it wrong that I giggled through your entire post?
Geez, anti-easily amused people, lighten up. I’m sorry that I want to go through my life getting as much enjoyment and humor out of it as possible. Laughing feels good.
So, you don’t think Archive Guy’s friend sounds a little annoying?
You must not be bothered by anything at all. And you’re lucky if that’s true.
I don’t really want to “lighten up.” I’m pretty happy the way I am. But, I’m also a realist and life gets to me a lot. I can’t just laugh at everything and pretend everything is ok all of the time.
Oh, Lord. I once saw Sling Blade at a friend’s house with her roommates. One roommate was okay, but another started giggling, and by the climactic scene, he was shrieking with laughter like an epileptic hyena. He was lucky I didn’t have me a sling blade.
Daniel
I can only speak for myself, but I don’t pretend everything is okay all of the time. I’ve been through a lot of crap, so I know things can’t be okay all of the time. I just don’t sweat the small stuff.
This isn’t meant as an insult in any way, Indygrrl, because you are simply saying that you have a different level/sense of humour, as everyone does, and I respect that as much as I expect people to respect my own. I don’t think you should “lighten up” if you are happy and comfortable with your level of humour, that’s something only you can/will/would want to change, if at all.
However, I feel the OP is just trying to say that people who laugh at things she doesn’t find funny is annoying - I don’t think that’s the laugher’s problem, I think that’s hers. If it’s at a movie, of course, she could kindly ask the laugher to hush, if it’s quite distracting (if the laugher just snubbed her, okay,* then * we’ll have a problem, but that’s more to do with rudeness and disrespect than with laughing), but the OP seems to be trying to say that the things she doesn’t find funny, no one should laugh at.
This:
was all I needed to see what her intentions are. I’m still waiting for the answer to my earlier question to her.
FTR, I didn’t find the guy in ArchiveGuy’s post annoying, however, I could see how it could be to some people, and once again, in a public movie theatre, if someone is being distracting, you ask them to please cut it out - if they don’t, it’s not an issue of laughter anymore. They’re just plain rude.
I find most commercials hilarious for the exact same reason. The “characters” in them are so obsessed with the products and so insistent on demonstrating them to you. This is in contrast to real life, where a perseveration with soda pop or batteries or cake mixes (I laughed just reading that description) is considered bizarre and insane. The characters live in a backwards world which is warped toward the advertised product; their world “exists” only to sell you something. We, on the other hand, live in a complicated universe in which there isn’t one absolute guiding principle, no Tao of Duracell or Bible of Coca-Cola. Commercials feature people a lot like us functioning in a world totally unlike ours. Therefore, they are surreal. And surreality is funny.
That probably wasn’t the thought process of the people in the theater though. They were probably thinking “them slant-eyed people sure do talk funny, hyuck.” And that is why I hate people. Right conclusion, wrong process.
No, I understand that laughing all the time could get annoying to some people. But the fact that someone does laugh at everything is almost surreal, and I found the complete surreality of the situation described funny. Perhaps I looked at it the wrong way. Maybe I should have placed myself in Archive Guy’s shoes. Still, I’ve never been bothered by people who laugh a lot, even at things I don’t find funny (though I might be puzzled if I don’t see what’s funny or find the object of humor offensive). There will always be shitty or sad things in life. I don’t see a problem with someone not wanting to dwell on them all the time. When bad things happen, they happen big, so I don’t see a problem with having a lot of little good moments to balance them out. Life’s something to be enjoyed to its fullest whenever you can, even if it’s just laughing at the little things.
On preview, what Anastasaeon said.
LiT is one of the most deadly boring movies I’ve seen from start to finish, so no, it didn’t make me laugh. However, this thread made me laugh so hard I had tears running down my face.
You should laugh when you feel like laughing. It keeps you from bringing fire arms to work.
Totally! 
I can’t stop giggling at this. This is the type of thing I go for. I tend to laugh a lot, but I have a different sort of sense of humor, so most jokes and things that people say just get a smile out of me. It’s usually unintentional humor that makes me laugh, and then I can’t stop.
Most of the time giggly people don’t bother me, unless every single time they laugh it’s a really loud guffaw. Then that just gets irritating.
well this is probably closer to how I feel… and likewise, if i laugh it’s usually from something that was not intentionally funny. And actually my friends tell me they “love” my dry sense of humor … huh??? Can someone define “dry sense of humor”??? I think they tend to mistake flippant sarcasm for humor, go figr :dubious: But i guess as long as I felt good whip’n it out and they got their giggles, it’s a win-win scenario.
Who can describe a sense of humor? Nope, not me. I laugh at odd things myself, sometimes at the dumbest stuff. Right, Airplane and Blazing Saddles were both dumb, I knew they were dumb, and still found myself laughing.
I saw Lost In Translation under slightly odd circumstances; the sound on my friend’s video deck wasn’t working; could hardly hear the movie. It wasn’t funny exactly, but I thought I could appreciate the alienation that Murray’s character must be feeling - and the Japanese game show was truly surreal. I dunno, I think I smiled a little at the absurdity of it.
I think I like the explanation that we often laugh so that we don’t break down and cry.
Oh, and if you see me at some community theater where they’re putting on what’s supposed to be a comedy - I’ll laugh at the jokes (within reason) (my reason, that is) because it’s a courtesy for the actors trying the best they can.
No. I often watch sitcoms where someone says something really stupid, lame and unfunny and they have the laugh track going full force, telling me that I was supposed to find that funny. People who go through life laughing along with the laugh track, even though it’s not actually funny, annoy me.
I work in a kindergarten. Today a little miss tripped and fell on the end of the slide. It was actually a scary moment, one of those injuries you hear and you internally say EEEEEKKKKKKK while appearing to remain calm. She was fine, all sorted out with an ice pack etc.
About an hour later she said “Hey did you see what I did to the slide?”
I followed her to the slide, there was a teensy (well aged crack).
“Did your head do that?” I asked.
“Yep” she proudly answered
“Wow” I said. “Is your head made of concrete?”
“No silly! it’s made of wood…oops I mean bones”
I laughed like a drain. After 5 seconds of indignancy, so did she.
A stupid thing to laugh at but sometimes it is just good to laugh.