Share This

Are You a Joker or a Laugher? [Wow! It’s Wednesday!]

If you’ve ever met me IRL, then you probably already know that I’m both. I make jokes all the time, but will often show my appreciation of your joke with a hearty laugh. My sister is also both — really I hail from a family, who in general enjoys both making and laughing at good and bad jokes alike.

However, my husband is neither. He’ll occasionally make a joke, but he isn’t in the habit of doing so. And he doesn’t so much laugh at my jokes as play along. Part of the problem is that his work involves maintaining his concentration while listening to all sorts of jokes, so while he might appreciate a good joke, the adjective “uproarious” would never be used for the way he responds to one.

A lot of women I know and (perhaps not in-coincidentally) like are laughers, rewarding me with chuckles for my efforts. I’m always happy to meet a fellow joker, but notice that many of them don’t laugh at my jokes in return, either because they’re waiting to tell their own joke in response or because they’re not laughers. I’ve decided to take the “I’m not all that funny” option off the table as it would hurt my feelings.

What’s really interesting is that I’ve noticed that IRL joker or laugher status often has absolutely nothing to do with the way writers write. For example many of the serious literary novelists that I’ve met are really quite funny in person. I’ve also met authors who make me laugh out loud while I’m reading, but keep a totally straight-face when they’re talking with me one on one. Quite recently, I decided to read THE SWEET SPOT, a scorching hot novel by Kimberly Kaye Terry, simply because I loved her wickedly funny IRL personality. “I’m not really funny when I write,” she warned me. And to my surprise she hadn’t lied. The novel had great sex scenes, good suspense, dramatic situations, and rocking pacing, but maybe only two or three jokes. Ms. Terry is way funnier than me IRL but rarely lets the humor get in the way of her plot, whereas I will go out of my way to include a situation if I think it will get a good laugh. Go figure.

But how about you? Are you a joker, a laugher, both, or neither? Let us know in the comments.

featured image credit: tarotastic


If you liked this post, please do us the further boon of Liking the Fierce and Nerdy page on FaceBook. Also, we’re giving great stream on Twitter, so do give us follow.