19 (M), when I hang out with friends in uni I just… keep making myself the butt of the joke, or promote behaviors that end up with me being made fun of as well. I think it’s the only way I know how to interact while being natural?
I just don’t know how to be serious… or I guess it’s easier for me this way, because I like cracking jokes and people laughing at me… but I also know this is a problem, because everyone keeps joking about me, say, being like a dog (don’t ask lmao), being clumsy, or being a liar for fun (like I say, I dunno, I’m 17, when I’m 20, for no reason, and people are like jokingly going “lol stop lying u bastard”). It’s not that it bothers me as much as I know this behavior doesn’t let me interact seriously with people, like I see them do. I don’t like always being such an unserious character.
I know this is a me problem, and that I need to set boundaries, but the problem is that I don’t really enjoy conversations if I don’t do this. I guess in a way, I like making it about myself, because otherwise I never come up, and I’m not witty enough to joke if the joke isn’t me being a fool.
I want genuine and intimate connections, but I’ve interacted with people this way all my life, and I don’t know how else to interact without becoming bored or feeling like I don’t belong. It’s either being this “haha I’m such a dummy” character or not knowing what to say. Everytime I try being serious, nothing really comes up that makes me feel like I’ve connected with people?
For clarification, it’s not self-deprecating humor as much as me just acting intentionally dumb, or overreacting on purpose, etc etc.
TLDR: What can I do to interact with friends normally? To build connections in a serious manner, without always making a joke of myself?
​
​
3 comments
Not an expert on psychology, but self-deprecation (whether intentionally as your format of being funny or not) is quite common and you would likely benefit from therapy (just like everybody, in theory, would – not necessarily because it’s bad, but because you would start to understand yourself better).
If I had to guess, you at some point learned that acting a certain way gets people to seemingly like you (because they find it funny). But growing up, people might no longer respond to that as positively as they used to.
I have the complete other problem that i kill fun Try focusing on what they say, show you care by asking if you can help. Leave jokes to other people so you dont have to entertain them.
Start identifying yourself as a confident person and not as the clown of the group. By this I mean, identifying yourself to you, not to others.
To accomplish that, it’s too hard to do a full 180, so apply small changes in your behavior each day to slowly detach from your old persona.
>I guess in a way, I like making it about myself, because otherwise I never come up, and I’m not witty enough to joke if the joke isn’t me being a fool.
You became good at that skill because you practiced it so much, now it’s time to learn new skills. Even if it doesn’t go well at first, you’ll need to keep trying, if not you will keep relying in what you’ve been doing so far because it “works”.
Genuine and intimate connections will come from you overcoming this fake person you are portraying and discovering more who you actually are. How else can people really connect with you if you keep giving them someone who is not you.