identity exercise: great sense of humour and dry wit

 

For most of my life, I've been super shy and introverted.  I recharge by being alone.  I dislike crowds.  I am extremely uncomfortable with strangers.  As a child, being in or in front of a crowd could send me to tears.

But.  Gradually, I grew into something.  By junior high age, when I was in a group of people, whether strangers or friends, I came out as a clown.  Not an overt clown, no.  A sly, off-the-cuff, unexpected joker.  A quiet disrupter.

In high school French class, I'd wait till Mr. Pelletier's back was turned.  Then I'd quickly flip my eyelids inside out and look around the room.  Anyone who happened to glance in my direction would shout or groan or shriek in horror, and I'd flip my lids back in an instant.  Mr. Pelletier would turn and demand to know what was wrong, and I'd look, clueless, around the room with everyone else.  He'd turn back to the board and I'd flip them again, with more of the class at the ready this time....

Random things strike me funny, and my mouth takes off before my brain catches up to tell it to stay quiet.  Usually my comments are just slightly above a whisper, and spoken deadpan.  Somehow I manage to present a facade of composure - or maybe it's my resting bitch face - that makes the wit that comes from my mouth a surprise.  People around me snort, snicker, or shoot me a smirk.  And that just eggs me on!

I looked up the meaning of "dry wit."  "Deadpan, dry humour, or dry-wit humour is the deliberate display of emotional neutrality or no emotion, commonly as a form of comedic delivery to contrast with the ridiculousness or absurdity of the subject matter.  The delivery is meant to be blunt, ironic, laconic, or apparently unintentional.

Yep, that's me.

My penchant for producing a laugh might come from my efforts as a child, to make my mother laugh.  I remember the thrill of seeing her smile and feeling like she loved me, and then I'd say more things to keep her favour.

Sometimes I feel exasperated with myself.  "Just. Stop.  Shut. UP."  Because I feel like I'm way overdoing it, and people are just faking while thinking, "God, make her stop!"  Sometimes I feel like I just can't seem to rein it in, like my brain and my mouth are a runaway train and I'm the wreck that people can't look away from - horrified fascination. "Just. STOP."

But most often, I kind of like my sense of humour.  Most often, I think I'm hilarious.  Most often, I think it's cool that I can make people laugh.