DumbFunnery

I’m 30 now. And married. And I think these two things entitle me to have formed some pretty obvious observations.

For example, I’m sitting and having lunch (I’m here trying to read a book to be a better coder but instead I’m doing this …). At a table near me are three high school kids. Two girls and a guy. The girls are laughing a lot. Now, maybe this guy is the funniest guy in the world. But you know what? Probably not. (He’s too handsome to be that funny, no one needs to be both funny AND attractive.)

When I was younger, if I said something trying to be funny and a girl laughed a lot, I didn’t get it. I didn’t think, ‘oh she’s flirting‘ or ‘oh she likes me.’ I thought, ‘that wasn’t that funny, why is she laughing?’ And if I had a crush on the girl laughing, it was a neurotic, self-harming thought like, ‘that wasn’t that funny … is she mocking me?’

Thankfully, by the time I turned 28 and met my now wife, I’d managed to sort out a few things like – sometimes people laugh really hard at dumb things because they happen to find them funny and sometimes if someone is interested in you they ask questions about things they probably find boring not to confuse you but to show interest in you and make you feel like a hot shot.

You heard it here first folks. Think back on your conversations – if someone laughed a ton and things you said that aren’t that funny, or if someone showed a lot of interest in your joy over something most consider boring … that person just may like you. Or maybe they are setting you up to mock you at a school assembly. You can’t be sure.