Funny Folk

I’m sitting across from Andrew at Starbucks. He asks me a question, and I respond in earnest. A very amused smile spreads across his face. A disconcerting smile.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I demand.

“You’re a Funny Person, Nadine. A real ‘hoot’”

Funny Person. A title to which every young woman aspires.

“What do you mean Funny Person? Do you mean like ‘haha’ funny?”

I come from a family that speaks in euphemisms:

Fat = ‘Cute’
Stupid = ‘Kind’
Drunk = ‘Happy’
Mega Evil Bitch = ‘Mildly Moody Woman’

“Funny” is the place holder for many undesirably qualities:

He’s a big-time perv = ‘he’s Funny’
There is penicillin growing on that odious cheese = ‘it has gone Funny’
He farts like a pig = ‘His stomach is a bit Funny’

I immediately get my back up the second I think someone is euphemising me.

“Nadine, you are funny in Every Way,” Andrew answers.

Fanbloodytastic.

I’m no comedienne. Yet, I have often had this title of Funny Person applied to me.

I think that many of my friends, unfamiliar with the neuroses stereotypically characteristic of Women of the Tribe, mistake my baseline disposition for an expression of intentional comedy.

My friend, HoneyBunny, certainly made this mistake. Convinced that I was actually a ‘haha’ Funny Person, she and her boyfriend asked me to give the speech at her 21st birthday party.

The funny thing about HoneyBunny was that there was absolutely nothing funny about her. I tried to recall a funny story about her. I came up completely empty.

HoneyBunny is the most horrifically normal person I have ever met. No weird quirks. No drunken foolery. No lapses in judgment. No obsessive tendencies. She was a good student. She respected her parents. She never littered.

I therefore did the only thing I could do in that situation. I wrote a very sappy and comatosely boring speech: “Top 10 things I like about HoneyBunny.” I wonder what boring speech writers did for material before David Letterman?

At the conclusion of my speech, HoneyBunny came across the dance floor towards me, with a palpable look of disappointment on her face, to give me a hug. She whispered in my ear:

“Thanks. But you weren’t really funny, were you?”

I recently completed an unofficial internet poll:

Approximately 80% of MSN Chatters prefer “lol” to “ha.”

But nearly 100% of MSN Chatters use either “lol” or “ha” once or more in a typical MSN chat.

Next I spoke to a bunch of MSN Chatters by telephone.

Less than 40% either laughed out loud or audibly “haha-ed” during our live conversation.

This leads me to the conclusion that either people are way funnier by MSN, or else people like the idea of laughing, or want others to think they are laughing, but don’t actually engage in much physical laughing themselves.

I’m inclined to believe it is the latter. People like the idea of laughing. People who laugh are fun to be around. They keep things light.

But not always.

I went to a book talk by Thomas King, who was born to a mother of Greek/German descent and to a Cherokee father. His books often touch on difficult issues surrounding Aboriginal culture and Native Rights. Plus, his books are freakin’ hilarious.

When asked about his use of comedy, he explained that being funny allowed him to be highly critical of white society but in a form that is palatable to his white audience. He also felt that the benefit of dishing up social critique in this comedic form was that the message tended to stick around longer with its recipient.

He said what depresses him most about being a Funny Person is that a sad number of readers don’t realize that his comedies are actually tragedies.

I know a tragic Funny Person. He uses comedy as a self-defense mechanism. He shields himself in a cloak of sarcasm that repels any serious or difficult issue in his vicinity.

He is very sad to be around.

So I take stock of all the types of Funny People I could be:

HaHa Funny
LOL Funny
Tragic Funny
Weird Funny
Neurotic Funny
Rotten Funny
Pervert Funny

I decide that I disagree with Andrew. I’m not funny in Every Way.

I consider the fact that Andrew, a 27-year-old, has told me: “you are a real ‘hoot,’” and “I get a ‘kick’ out of you.”

I decide to add another Funny to my list:

Anachronism Funny.