I overheard someone for the hundredth-plus time remark, "They're just trying to get more money!" This seems to be some sort of condemnation, but to me it is all just so funny. First, there's the "duh man!" because the observation rarely ever needs to be made, and because most people are trying to get more money. The second thing that strikes me is the irony of the typical situation in which this occurs. Usually the person making the statement is someone who is paying the "extra" money and complaining about it in a condemning, self-righteous way. This is hilarious to me because if they were any different from whom/whatever they are condemning their loss of money would mean little to nothing to them and would thus not be worth a comment. Finally, the hypocrisy of this all is really funny to me. I get a huge kick out of self-righteous people who are inadvertantly being hypocritical. It's something that we all do at some point in our lives, and it is amusing to witness such a typical-human thing.
Anyway, I'm done with talking about that particular recurring incident, but I have more to say down below about my my sense of humor and humor in general.
I think have a fairly broad sense of humor. This has it's positives and its negatives for sure. The most obvious positive is that I find a whole lot of things funny, and therefore enjoy myself a lot in life. The negatives are that I sometimes (too often maybe?) laugh when other people think I shouldn't. I also might laugh at something that no one I am currently with finds humorous, and that's just plain awkward. Finally, there is the real killer -- telling a joke, being witty, etc. and having it be a bad fit for my audience's humor (audience = Joy or some other close friend) or having it go over their head.
I'm a big fan of physical comedy, wit, dark comedy, silliness, irony, gentle teasing innuendo, double entedres and other word play (Yea for word play!) I'm pretty much a positive-neutral on slapstick, bathroom humor, and gross-out stuff. They're alright. These kinds of jokes/situation might get a laugh from me occasionally, but usually they need to be backed up with some wit of some kind or else I will let them just slide by unremarkably and unnoticed.
There are probably other types of humor that I enjoy, but I don't really know the names for all of this stuff.
Basically, the only humor I don't really like is mean-spirited humor, mockery, verbal jabs and put-downs outside of a really tight friendship, and laughing at someone else's genuine misfortune.
This whole humor thing has been an issue for me since I was a kid, and it comes and goes depending on how good I feel in general and my level of confidence or lack of inhibition in the situation. One of the biggest issues that has gotten me thinking lately is the way that I unconsciously shift my humor to match the sense of humor of the person/people that I am with. At first I thought this was a bad "loss of self"-type issue, but I would like to embrace it because that is what makes having an eclectic mix of friends fun, y'know? This allows me to be witty with the quick witted people, silly with kids and the sillier types, dark with the mean-spirited people (I find that the people I know who like mean-spirited humor also like dark humor,) etc.