I used to think I was a pretty funny person. That was before I met Barry.
Don't get me wrong; Barry has many wonderful qualities. That's why we've been together for almost 6 years. However, he has two characteristics that make him an unsatisfactory audience for witty remarks: damaged hearing and Asperger's syndrome. For those of you not familiar with Asperger's, it's an autism-spectrum disorder; without a lot of work, the sufferers never pick up the social interaction skills that most of us acquire naturally in childhood. Because of his hearing loss, Barry frequently can't hear my attempts at humor, and because of the Asperger's, when he does hear them, he usually doesn't understand why they're supposed to be funny. I think his sense of humor stalled at about the third grade. I hadn't known him for very long before I just gave up trying to tell him jokes; few things are more deflating than laughing wildly at your own remarks while your audience stares at you in total bewilderment.
Unfortunately, this is also the first time in my life that I haven't had at least one kindred spirit among my co-workers, or a funny female friend that I spend a lot of time with one-on-one. This means a huge backlog of sarcasm has been building up inside my head and I've begun to worry that one day soon it will spontaneously erupt and spew forth in a torrent of malice that will ruin my home life or my job or both. Hence this blog. Hence my recent frantic spate of daily postings. Maybe I can bleed off the pressure gradually before my head explodes like Krakatoa.
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." - E. B. White
No comments:
Post a Comment