How Jokes Affect Relationships

You love joking around, but you're not always sure when it's the right time and when it isn't? Why is it sometimes best not to take offense at your friends' jokes at all? Let's look at these questions together.

Contents

• The Benefits of Joking
• What Are a Joke and Humor?
• How Jokes Affect Relationships and Life in General
• How to Joke the Right Way
• What You Should NOT Joke About
• Tips for Beginner Jokers

The Benefits of Joking

They say laughter and jokes add years to our lives. Here are a few facts to see whether that's actually true:

• Doctors claim that laughter extends a person's life and improves their health (there's a well-known claim that ten minutes of laughter can match the "nutritional value" of a glass of sour cream);
• Beauticians recommend smiling as often as possible, since it actively works the facial muscles, so wrinkles appear later and more slowly;
• Numerous studies confirm that a positive mood is contagious. (For example, no matter how angry you are, if the person who wronged you smiles sincerely and apologizes, your anger instantly melts into a friendly "It's okay.");
• A smile has become the calling card of every professional salesperson (it's hard to turn down a purchase when it's offered with a sincere smile and a friendly attitude);
• It's been shown that in families where spouses, and parents and children, communicate with humor rather than shouting and insults, marriages last longer and children more often succeed not only in love but also in their careers.

What Are a Joke and Humor?

A joke is something said or done for fun, for laughter; words or actions of a humorous nature.

Humor is a form of the comic — a reflection of what's funny in everyday situations and in human character traits.

— the ability of a person, or of certain objects or situations, to provoke laughter.

— one of the forms of human communication, whose purpose is to release tension and stress and to defuse aggression. It's a precondition for positive emotions: joy, cheerfulness, and so on.

A sense of humor, to some degree, is present in almost every person.

A joke can take different forms — a question/answer format or a short anecdote. To achieve its comedic goal, a joke can use irony, sarcasm, wordplay, and other techniques.

How Jokes Affect Relationships and Life in General

A joke is good when people laugh together over something, not at someone. Laughing at someone, putting a person in an awkward position, is something only a person lacking a sense of humor — a cruel and foolish person — would do. A joke is good when it makes people kinder and happier, because laughter releases pent-up energy and helps us relax.

Humor is called a double-edged sword. A bad joke can easily destroy a career someone spent decades building. The classic example by now is PR specialist Justine Sacco, dubbed "the most hated woman on Twitter." Before boarding a flight, Sacco tweeted: "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding, I'm white!" By the time the plane landed, she had not only lost her job but had also become an outcast, both online and offline.

There are times when a joke simply doesn't fit, and it isn't always about the type of event — an interview, a date, even a funeral. It all depends on the context of the conversation, who you're talking to and about what, and how close the subject of the joke is to that person.

When it comes to family, spouses are generally happier in relationships with a partner who has a sense of humor.

Stressful situations happen in any job and any team: work isn't finished on time, a message gets sent to the wrong chat, someone trips over your chair and the owner falls…

Voltaire put it precisely: «What has become funny can no longer be dangerous.» The ability to treat everything with humor always helps you cope with difficult situations at work. It can be a great way to release tension and «let off steam.»

But alongside its positive effects, humor sometimes has quite the opposite consequences — which is where we see the phenomenon of aggressive humor. By using this kind of humor, a person can gain certain advantages. This often creates a hierarchy within a group. The person who resorts to such jokes may gain higher social status, but the environment around them becomes toxic.

One thing can be said for certain: aggressive humor gets in the way of building healthy, trusting relationships. One of the key components of such relationships is non-judgment. And around a person who allows themselves aggressive jokes, others will simply be afraid of becoming the «butt of the joke.» If someone is frequently the target of aggressive jokes, it can seriously affect their self-esteem and be traumatic for their psyche. Pressure from those around only multiplies the negative effect: the stance «you have no right to be offended by a joke» isn't healthy for accepting oneself and one's emotions.

It's not really about humor itself, but about the intent behind opening one's mouth in the first place. Because very often, the intent to insult and provoke someone is achieved through a cheeky jab that, to an outside listener, may sound like nothing more than a witty joke that's impossible not to laugh at.

The tendency of people to joke offensively toward others is an expression either of their ignorance and unawareness of their own actions, or of selfish indifference and immaturity, or of a wounded psyche.

Freedom of speech is an achievement of civilization, but it shouldn't be used thoughtlessly.

For example, a teacher was recently killed in France after showing a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad in class as an illustration of freedom of speech. Interestingly, publishing that same caricature in the past caused the Cartoon Controversy, accompanied by mass protests, persecution, and attacks.

If a joke offends you in some way, understand that it's normal to feel various emotions about it and to voice how you feel. It's not that you «just don't get jokes» — it's that the person making the joke doesn't understand how it affects others and what consequences it can have.

Of course, it's normal — and sometimes necessary — to be offended or upset by a joke. Ideally it should work like this: I used my freedom of speech to make a joke about you, and you used your freedom of speech to publicly object to my joke. That's normal. Pepper spray, bans, and censorship are not normal. Ideally, in response to my joke, you write your own joke that mocks my position. Then we're having a creative dialogue.

The audience is just as much a part of a joke as the joke itself and the person who created it. For humor to be ecological, it's important to laugh together rather than at someone. It's also entirely possible to avoid generalizations and stereotypes in your humor. There's a difference between a joke about the fact that your friend always takes forever to get ready and it's annoying, and a joke that all women on the planet take forever to get ready. Yes, the topic is still stereotypical, but it's already an improvement.

How to Joke the Right Way

• Learn to laugh at yourself. Perhaps one of the most important rules, even though it comes last. Many comedians harshly joke about the people around them but get offended by jokes aimed at themselves. Above all, you need to learn to joke about yourself too. Remember that a joke is a powerful weapon that can melt ice and dissolve anger and irritation.
• Look for the positive in the negative, and vice versa. For example: «There will never be a terrorist attack on the Kyiv metro in the morning, because the carriages are so packed that a terrorist couldn't even press the detonator button — their arms would be pinned, and some grandma would end up sitting right on the bomb, getting off at Arsenalna.»
• Develop your general knowledge. Read more, talk to more people, watch educational shows, find interesting hobbies for yourself. People who are truly brilliant at joking have a large store of knowledge. This is necessary in order to spot funny connections between things, to build on what you've observed by comparing it to something else. It's important to remember that any experience is useful — both positive and negative — since humor is inseparably linked to problems and failures.

Shared laughter brings people closer — it's not for nothing that humor is called social glue.

What You Should NOT Joke About

There aren't that many forbidden topics in humor, but you absolutely need to know them, so you don't end up in an awkward situation or gain a reputation as a tactless, immoral person.

Topics better left untouched include:

Religion. What people believe, and their faith, is a strictly personal matter. Everyone treats it differently: for some, religion means nothing, while for others it may be the meaning of life. We can never know which category a given person falls into. A joke about religion may “work” in a group of close friends who have known each other for years. But among strangers, joking about faith — let alone in a negative way — is taboo. If you do bring up religion in your jokes, remember that it's better to joke about a specific person rather than about their beliefs. You can't mock what millions of people around the world believe in.

Countries and nations. Despite the fact that today there are plenty of jokes about the USA, Ukraine, European countries, and other nations, joking on this topic — while not exactly forbidden — requires a lot of care. You can run into the same issue as above: some people calmly accept jokes about their country, while an ardent patriot might be seriously hurt by your joke.

The suffering and misfortune of others. Laughing at something that causes someone else pain is the height of tactlessness and bad manners. Such jokes are usually received extremely negatively, and if you joke on this topic, you can be sure that the next time (even with just one person from that group), your presence will be unwelcome. On top of that, jokes about misfortune simply aren't funny. And speaking purely as human beings: no one knows what awaits them in the future, and the person who's doing well today might find themselves in trouble tomorrow — including in the very situation of the person who was unsuccessfully joked about.

Physical disabilities, defects, mental abilities. This topic works the same way as the previous one.

One's own superiority. Following logically from the previous two points, it's fair to say you shouldn't joke about your personal superiority over other people. It doesn't matter what it concerns — physical strength, intellect, financial standing, etc. By glorifying themselves, a person achieves exactly the opposite effect — in other people's eyes, they come across as lesser. Of course, jokes on this topic can be heard fairly often today, but individual traits of each particular joker come into play here. If you want to create a correct and pleasant impression of yourself, be modest and don't boast, puffing out your chest and saying you're somehow better than others.

Sex. The topic of intimate relationships, despite having gained huge popularity among comedians, needs to be approached very carefully. As before, we can never know the moral standards of our audience, so joking about sex risks getting us into trouble. Moreover, such humor needs to be appropriate and fit the situation, and the jokes themselves need to land at the right moment.

Physiology. Here we mean the rather indecent topic of bodily excretions. This subject isn't exactly taboo, but this kind of humor is only accessible to those who truly know how to joke skillfully. In general, jokes on this topic are often simply not aesthetic and tend to cause disgust rather than laughter or a smile.

Inappropriate and ill-timed jokes provoke a negative reaction in people, cause embarrassment, and ruin the mood. Try to steer clear of them — and you won't need to worry about getting a healthy, appropriate reaction.

But, as one should expect, choosing the right topic isn't the only nuance affecting whether jokes succeed. There are a few more points a joker and comedian should meet. We'll cover those below.

Tips for Beginner Jokers

To always be the life of the party and a generator of good moods, to shine with wit and humor, adopt the following techniques:

• Think through and look for material for jokes;
• Find topics suited to different audiences and situations;
• Hold back from jokes you're not sure are harmless;
• Practice writing and telling short jokes and stories;
• Read more jokes and learn to tell them in front of a mirror;
• Use wordplay and the element of surprise in your jokes;
• Make sure the joke is actually funny (if a joke isn't funny to you, it won't be funny to your listeners either);
• Support your delivery with gestures (sometimes, to make someone laugh, you can even draw pictures on paper or a whiteboard);
• Build your self-confidence;
• Don't be afraid to improvise in unexpected situations;
• Hone your comedic skills on family first, then move on to friends and acquaintances;
• Analyze the jokes, anecdotes, and comic stories you see and hear, finding what's funny and amusing in them;
• Write down witty quotes from famous people — this will let you not only make people laugh but also make an impression and gain a reputation as an intellectual;
• Read literature that can give you material for witty jokes. For example, the works of M. Mishin, R. Gorin, M. Zoshchenko, A. Averchenko, A. Chekhov, Jaroslav Hašek, and other classic authors;
• Avoid insults, slander, mockery, and offensive jokes. They strip humor of its wonderful qualities — it stops making people better, bringing them together, and putting them in a positive mood. Humor should always have a positive direction. Otherwise, it becomes a marker of heartlessness, negative thinking, and a lack of mutual understanding with those around you.
• Don't be afraid to laugh at yourself.

Don't think that the art of humor is available only to talented people. Don't be afraid to experiment and take new steps, to combine original ideas with unexpected twists, to juggle words and rhyme playfully, to flip words around and swap letters. Remember, even the most celebrated comedians sometimes have jokes that just «don't land.»