I work in a small agency. Several people I work with have a habit I've never known how to deal with: social laughter, and I really need to know how to cope. Examples within:
This evening I'm at the bus stop in the rain. Fred, the new accountant, approaches.
Fred: Ha ha ha ha! Wet isn't it?
Me: Seems like it.
Fred: Well, they said it would be wet! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Me: Did they?
(This is where I retreat to, slightly dry remarks, because I just can't fake-laugh, it comes out sounding like a dying weasel. I'm being invited to laugh along socially for no good reason and I just cannot do it.)
Fred: Hey yeah, this morning on the radio! Ha ha ha ha ha!
Me, casting about for dialogue: At least it isn't snowing.
Fred, laughing as if I've been enormously witty: Ha ha ha ha ha! That might be better!
Me: I doubt you'll think so, because they don't even clear that bridge over there and it's tricky crossing over to this side when it's iced up.
Fred: Ha ha ha! I'll have to get big boots, hey! Big snowmobile boots, ha ha ha ha ha!
At this point, waiting and getting wetter, I said as cheerfully as I could, "Well, I've had it with waiting for this bus, I'm walking" and left the scene.
In another case, a closer coworker laughs constantly when telling you things like what components he put in his gaming computer. "So I decided I needed 64GB of memory, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" and I sit or stand there wondering what the joke is.
And one of the women, as well, does a lot of weird laughing and whooping when talking about ordinary non-funny matters.
Two points:
I'm not a sad sack. If something really is funny I laugh. I also work with a couple of smart people who can make me laugh, and I can make them laugh too – when things are funny or real in some way. But a day can go by when nobody's witty, because we're too busy or whatever, and that's fine too.
I am female but, trust me, it's not my overwhelming personal charms that have these men laughing nervously in my presence.
As I say, I tend to retreat to calm, slightly serious or trite remarks, in an effort to calm the dialogue down and get them to stop laughing. But it doesn't work, and I feel a certain social pressure to laugh along even though nothing is funny. And I just can't do it.
So, what do you do? |