I’m sure everyone has this problem: a sense of humor developed in the company of close friends that is often lost in translation when said to people you’ve only met recently, occasionally with disastrilarious results. I want to hear yours.
A big part of my outward personality is playing up my craziness, often in the forms of exaggerated mock-despair of the kind so popular with my generation. I’m also a bit of a dead-panner, however, and people whom I’ve only met just recently are quite often perplexed, disturbed, even, by the rather dark aspect my wit often takes on.
Case in point: kids around college age (like myself) often talk about how difficult it is for us to find work, meaning in life, etc. This is the context for my stock joke about planning for my future, which refers to the imaginary point in history where I throw myself off a bridge at 11:59 PM on the eve of my thirtieth birthday.
Strong stuff, I know. I try to only let that one out when I’m around my inner circle, but sometimes you just like to see 'em squirm…
Not everyone has this problem, no. Some of us are easily able to restrain our potentially-offensive jokes until we know our audience will enjoy them. Perhaps your audience is squirming uncomfortably because someone they know has recently committed suicide. Maybe a member of your audience is actually depressed and upset that nobody in their life has ever taken it seriously, and you’re another example of that.
You should make suicide jokes if you want to–but do it around people you know will appreciate them, and respect that not everybody is capable of that. I *love *dark humor myself. But there’s a difference between “making a humorous joke” and “being an selfish outspoken jerk without a brain-to-mouth filter,” even if the only difference is the people in your audience. Tact is a virtue when in the company of acquaintances and strangers.
Even someone who enjoys dark humor (like me) might still be uncomfortable hearing a stranger make a suicide pact for an upcoming date. Because you’re an unknown quantity, I don’t know your baseline. Now you’ve got me wondering, “Was that a real cry for help? Should I say or do something? If I don’t do something and he turns up dead tomorrow, I’m going to feel like a shitheel for the rest of my life. But if I say something and he’s just joking, he’s going to make me look like an ass for bringing it up. I think I’ll just stop hanging around this guy at all.”
Sorry this got all evangelistic and shit. But this is pretty classic attention-seeking behavior. You don’t care whether it’s good or bad, you just want people to look at you.
Alright, I guess I should have expected somebody to respond this way. I can offer the usual defenses: having experienced suicidal depression firsthand and secondhand through other members of my family, the act itself (not me of course), etc; as well as some unusual ones: the first thing my mom said when she found out she had cancer was “I can write limericks!” It’s sort of how we’re wired. Touchy subject? Absolutely. Attention seeking? Well, it’s not an excuse but I am a performer after all - besides, like I said, it’s all about context. I should have made it clearer that if I say such a thing out of the appropriate context - that is, to someone who doesn’t already know where I’m coming from - it’s a gaffe, hence the idea behind this thread. I should have made it clearer that when I perpetrate such a gaffe, I of course recognize it and work to establish the proper context (unless I happen not to really give a shit what a particular person thinks, and to use your words, “you’re a perfect example of that”). My mistake.
So I’m gonna go ahead and ignore all the judgments you made about me and ask politely that now that someone has made a point to call me an asshole, any future contributors please address the actual question posed in the OP, because I’m genuinely curious.
I guess it really comes down to whether your humor is extroverted or introverted. If you tell jokes for your own benefit to create situations you find humorous, such as watching someone else squirm, then I suppose your sense of humor is beyond judgement because you are your own audience.
Most folks I think tell a joke with the hope they can get someone’s mind to track in a way that surprises them–hence the traditional “3 tries” formula: 1st try sets a standard, 2nd try establishes a pattern, 3rd try = unexpected result that should have been obvious at the onset. Big laughs for all, and a satisfying power trip for the comedian who got to manipulate someone else’s mind. Personally, I fall into this camp because, as much as I loathe humanity, I still like to connect in unique ways with individual humans.
Well I have this thing where I incessantly tell someone who I am, what they did, and what measures they should take in preparation handling the repurcussions of said action.
Maybe wording it as a “problem” didn’t quite get at my meaning. There’s seriously no one else who has things they say that don’t come across clearly to people who don’t know them?