For as long as I can remember, I’ve had difficulty getting along with people around me. No, I do not feel socially awkward.
It is just that, on multiple occasions, I’ve been told that I’m too stiff and cannot handle a joke. Apparently, I have the tendency to dissect a joke like a well spread frog in Biology Lab, and drain the humours out of it.

Have you come across someone like this?

Have you experienced someone doing this to your jokes?

I mean, my own family and extended family have judged and avoided me to save their humorous banter from being ruined, on multiple occasions.

Hold it!
Wait a moment before you come down had with your sympathy and pity.
It has taken me a lot of years to understand and embrace this side of me, so please do not feel bad for me.

Here’s the deal:
I Am Sensitive.
And that’s alright because it means that I live an emotionally rich life. I feel more than the “strong lot”, and I am more likely to notice the minute nuances and undertones of ignorant oblivion.

Jokes are most commonly cracked and made when one is in their comfort zone or trying to hide their discomfort. Jokes are cracked among friends or to break awkward silences in tense situations.

MOST IMPORTANTLY,
jokes are the windows to your attitude just like your eyes are the windows to your soul. When you crack up or crack a joke which is insensitive and/or hurtful towards a culture, belief, gender, nationality, looks, body type, skin tone, personality inconsistencies… you are simply letting your discriminatory attitude or insecurities show.

And for the ones laughing at them, there are two kinds
i. the ones that find nothing wrong and continue to laugh along
ii. the ones that find it offensive (you have two choices):
ii.(a). take a stand at the risk of being cast out but being at peace with yourself
ii.(b). take no stand and stay complicit, thereby supporting the attitude

Which side of the spectrum are you on??