I Am Not My Jokes

My kid had a shitty day yesterday.

Let's call him J. J had two things happen to him that, eventually, happen to everyone. Things so clichéd, they're barely worthy of a sitcom plot (with apologies to fans of shows like Two and a Half Men, Whitney, or whatever that obnoxious Jim Belushi one was).

In the morning, he was play-fighting with another boy in his class. They were really just playfully swinging their backpacks at each other. Anyway, the other kid turned at the wrong time and got smacked in the face. I make no excuses here: this is why we don't swing backpacks at other people, because shit happens. So of course, when this particular shit happened, J's seen as the aggressor, and he was punished. It's shitty when that happens, and it's especially shitty when there isn't much of a lesson to take away. Maybe something like "think carefully before engaging in an activity where, if something beyond your control goes wrong, the punishment probably won't fit the crime."

After lunch, he's still not in a great mood. He goes to play with his two best friends, and they've decided to exclude him a little bit. Now, I'll be honest here - J tends to lose his shit when he's not the ringleader. By his own admission, the kids he likes best are the kids who do what he wants them to do. This is not good, but he'll grow out of it. I do some course-control, obviously, but I'm not reading him self-help books before bed or anything, nor do I plan to. Anyway these two friends, it sounds like they made a bit of a game out of refusing to do anything J wanted to do, and they'd just sneak off by themselves. Probably giggling at the power rush, because (a) they're kids and (b) they're humans. Humans are jerks a lot of the time, and kid-humans don't have the skills to mask their jerkiness yet.

Later, at the dinner table, J gets to this point in his story, and he's pretty upset. Now, like I said, this scenario has played out a million times before, so it's easy to dismiss. But think back to the last time it happened to you. It hurts. It hurts a lot. It hurts at age 5, it still hurts at 34, and I don't imagine I'll like it any better when I'm 80 and somebody else's grandpa doesn't want me on his canasta team (does canasta have teams? I have no idea. But I have 47 years to learn). So I see J hurting, and I empathize. I tell him it's happened to me, and that it made me really sad. I said I was sure they still liked him, they just wanted to be by themselves for a while. He should try to find out what they want to play, and see if they'll let him join. If not, or if they're not nice about it, he can find out what some other kids might like to play.

"I did that," he tells me. "I went up to Ellie and I made this really loud noise like BRZRZBRBZRBRAP! She used to laugh when I did that, but now she doesn't anymore, and I don't know why." Remembering this made him even more sad.

And here's where I get to the part of the story where I have a point, and some useful thoughts. And what I told my kid was something like what follows, but adapted for five year-olds.

If someone used to laugh at your jokes, and they don't anymore, it can feel like they don't like you anymore. This is because, if you're the kind of person who gets called "clever" and "funny" from a very early age (like I was, and like J is), you start to think your jokes are part of your persona. The jokes become part of your self-image. You start to see your role as that of the entertainer. And if your jokes aren't working, then you're not entertaining, and then you're failing as a person.

It doesn't take a very big step away from the situation to see that this isn't the case, but in the moment, it sure feels like it. If you're a funny guy because you tell funny jokes, well then it follows logically that if you tell a lame joke, you're a lame guy. If the reaction to your joke is that it's obnoxious, you feel like you're obnoxious. But here's the thing: you are not your jokes. If the people who used to like your jokes don't like them anymore, it doesn't mean they don't like you. Maybe they want to hear different things, or maybe they just want you to shut up and listen to them for a while. And if you're a good friend, you'll pay attention to what they want. You don't have to do everything they want, because then you're a sheep. But if a friend, a spouse, a co-worker, or a family member is telling you, through one form of communication or another, that what used to work for them isn't working anymore, you need to respect that. And if you can't control yourself, and you absolutely need to be that character you're locked into, go do it in front of someone else for a while. Maybe a therapist.

Try, just as an experiment, not to be the character you've invented. Get really quiet, observe the usual impulses without acting on them, and see what else comes up. Got a funny joke? Write it down, and maybe publish a joke book someday (or at least start a twitter account). Got something mean and spiteful to say? Write that down, and then throw it away.

See who you are when you're not trying so damn hard to be yourself.