I have many memories with my ol’ female friends from elementary school where we’d all hang out together and share long, wonderful moments full of laughter; maybe around the lunch table, or in that hidden section in the library, or in the corridor outside of our classrooms. Attached to these memories are unfortunately also the memories of how whenever I threw my own attempts to be funny out there, I often found myself the only one laughing. As if that wasn’t bad enough, some smarty-pants girl could hit me right back with “Yeah, that wasn’t even funny”, or “Wow, you’re really laughing at your own jokes?” - like that was such a terrible crime.

It was okay, they still liked me plenty for my other amazing qualities, and I liked these girls a lot too. However, with time this successfully got to me. I’d keep my mouth shut, spare them from my bad jokes and just keep laughing at theirs. I guess you could say our humor wasn’t quite compatible.. Or, if you’re optimistic like me you can see it as me having a wider sense of humor than them ;-)

This stuck with me throughout high school and even on college. And, since I personally was quite shy and withdrawn, jokes were the only thing that really kept me out of my shell. Killing that off just left me with.. Shy and withdrawn. Thankfully, I still had smiling and laughing to hide behind.

A very important person in my life, a close friend, once taught me something that came to have a big meaning to me many years later. Something that completely changed my approach and helped me embrase myself more. We’d been living together for a while, and even though his sense of humor was one of the things that drew me to him to begin with, it was now driving me insane. It had come to a point where I found it so very hard to laugh at his jokes, which to me was very serious. I always wanted to be able to reward a joke with a good laughter, but I was running out of laughs! So one day in desperation, after one of his, according to me, bad jokes, I said with a tormented voice “But.. You’re not funny!”. I expected a hurt and disappointed look on his face, but what I got was a cuddly smile, followed by him wrapping his arms around me, kissing me on my forehead and saying; “It’s okay that you don’t think I’m funny, I think I’m funny. I love you just as much anyway”. Now, at that point I found the response quite useless since I’d still have to bear with the “bad” jokes, but today I’m so inspired by this. It’s amazing how small events in our lives can do so much!

Some social norms can just suck it. I like the girl I’ve restored in me - the girl that won’t stop trying for the laughs, and the girl inside me that laughs and claps at them no matter if they succeeded or failed. Both of them are really important, and I don’t really care that much anymore if others appreciate them or not. I’m far better off with them than without them. Thankfully, to my delight I’ve somehow managed to surround myself with people that appreciate this side of me, that give me laughter even though I’ve even realized myself half way through the joke that it’s a terrible one. What’s even better is that some even brighten up my day by throwing all they got back at me, putting me in a state where I’m almost falling to the floor laughing! Then there are still some people that think it’s important to inform me my jokes aren’t funny and that forces me to swallow my own laughter - but that’s okay, I love them just as much anyway.