Someone asks how you are really doing, and you have them laughing before you have decided to. You are the funny one. People like having you around. And you can't remember the last conversation in which somebody found out something true about you. I joke my way out of it. The sarcasm is how I dodge.
Being funny is not the strategy. The timing is.
01
What it looks like
The joke comes at the exact moment a feeling was about to show. A question gets close, and you are quick. Bad news gets told as a story with a punchline. A compliment gets a wisecrack back.
It happens when the hard thing is someone else's, too. A friend starts to say something serious and you lighten it before they finish.
I'll talk all the way around it before I admit something is worrying me. By the time the laughing stops, the subject has changed, and nobody could say who changed it.
02
What it protects
Across the rules below, the joke may keep a moment from turning serious.
What a serious moment would have exposed is the part the behavior can't tell you.
03
The rules it can serve, and what is under each
"Strong is the only version of me they know."
The joke may keep people from seeing that something got to you. Under it, the fear may be that if they see you struggle, you lose the only standing you have.
Read about Strong →"Asking creates a debt I don't want to carry."
The joke may make your trouble sound small enough that nobody offers anything. Under it, the fear may be that your needs make you too much, and too much gets left.
Read about Burden →"I need to be chosen."
Being the funny one may be how you stay wanted in the room. Under it, the fear may be that if you are not selected, you were not enough to select. I figured out young that if I could make people laugh, they'd keep me around.
Read about Chosen →"If everyone is okay, then I'm okay."
The joke may be there to ease a tense room. Under it, the fear may be that someone's disappointment means you did something wrong.
Read about Peace →These four are not a full list.
04
What it buys and what it costs
It buys a great deal. People do enjoy you. Hard moments do get easier, and a room with you in it can be a better room.
For you, the cost may be that the true thing never gets said. People may know you well and still not know much.
For the people close to you, it can be confusing. Someone who reaches toward you and gets a joke may conclude you don't want to be reached. And a friend whose serious moment was lightened may not bring the next one to you.
05
How to tell which rule is under it
There are three questions here. Each one separates two of the rules above.
Peace, or Strong and Burden: protecting them, or protecting yourself? Take the last joke that changed a subject. If it was to keep anyone in the room from being upset, that is the Peace answer. If it was for your own sake, the next question is the one to ask.
Strong or Burden: if someone helped you and literally nobody would ever know, would you accept? Yes is the Strong answer. Still no is the Burden answer.
Peace or Chosen: would you rather have no conflict and be nobody's favorite, or be someone's favorite and have friction? No conflict is the Peace answer. The favorite, friction and all, is the Chosen answer. Chosen has no question on this page against Strong or Burden. Going by the rules themselves, Chosen is about being the one they pick, Strong is about never visibly struggling, and Burden is about needing nothing from anyone. That is a place to look and not a test.
If none of them moves anything, there is not enough to tell yet. That is a result.
One thing is not this strategy. Being funny is a gift, and laughing at something hard can be a way of facing it. What to look at is order, and whether the joke comes after the true thing has been said or in place of it.
Ruling one of these out is the point. That is how subtraction works: take away what doesn't account for the evidence, and see what is left.
What it is like when the deflecting becomes disappearing is on I Hide When I'm Struggling.