Those funny People; the Fake Clowns

I reckon most people think that they have a wonderful sense of humour. A bit like most men think they're fantastic drivers.

Or is it just men? I wonder, as I write this I've had the thought that perhaps women aren't as bothered about their own sense of humour as a man is about his. Could it be that us men are just ego driven chimps who strive to be better than the next man? How ridiculous, I can hear David Blacker saying!

I digress, which is one of that things that I'm finding fascinating now that I'm trying my damndest to get my blogging mojo back.

Obviously, being a man, I consider myself pretty damn funny. I read somewhere (I think it was by Edward De Bono)  that a person who is funny has the ability to jump off the road that a conversation is travelling on, to get to a different place, then take his co conversationalist to that place too. The unexpected, combined with someone else guiding us there, is usually what makes us laugh.

I don't know, but it seemed like a very good rational explanation of a tricky yet instinctive concept. How does one analyse something that just happens to us naturally? We don’t hear something funny then assess its pros and cons with our rational mind before deciding whether to laugh. We just hear the funny and spit coffee everywhere, perhaps applying the rational mind afterwards to try to figure out what was funny.

What about those people who just try too hard to be too funny too much of the time? Do you know any? Have you observed any and do they get on your nerves like they do to me?

I have a friend, someone I'd describe as one of those fringe friends, who acts like some kind of clown. He's constantly messing around, either physically or verbally, and any conversation with him seems to consist of him trying to find something funny to say.

And he fails abysmally IMHO.

There are times when he genuinely cracks a witticism, when one slips through the cracks and makes me laugh. But generally I just think "WTF?" to myself and wonder if it's all about attention, like with Chandler and his childhood.

I'm one of three brothers and when I'm with both my siblings we put a lot of effort into making each other laugh. It's how we are and I suspect many sets of brothers are like this. But it feels natural, never forced, to us. Or that might be my inherent bias, I'm not sure. But I don't think any of us seek to do this with other people all the time, especially to the extent that it gets on their nerves.

So what on Earth is is with these fake clown types?

Are they compulsive attention seekers, probably because of childhood issues? Or are they people who genuinely are funny and it’s just you and I who don’t find them funny?

Or what?