The Joker.


I have an annoying habit of playing for laughs in social situations.

I did it a couple of times in my meditation class tonight. It wasn’t anything big – I didn’t launch into a stand-up routine or any Norman Wisdom-style pratfalls – but I still found time to slip the odd joke into our group discussion and pull faces at an opportune moments; call me Phil Cool. No, seriously…CALL ME IT.

I guess it’s just my way and I shouldn’t judge it too much, but I find it particularly irritating when I do it when I’m not feeling my best. Sometimes you don’t want to be outwardly jovial, but for me it’s like a reflex – and as I do it, like tonight, a voice inside my head says, “I bet everyone here thinks I’m a dick”.

Hopefully that voice is my saving grace, and the fact that I’m questioning whether people are being irritated by me stops me from becoming too tiresome myself. Though at least if I am getting on everyone else’s nerves, we’re all in agreement; no-one can be more annoyed by me than me. I'm throwing down the gauntlet with that one.

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