Uncontrollable or inappropriate laughter

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Hi everyone!

I wanted to share this thing with you: my boyfriend has a clear problem with laughter management.
There are two typical situations:
- He starts laughing for something that is moderately funny (something that would make me, NT,
smile, for instance) and he can't stop. He can go on for a couple of minutes.
- He laughs when people tell him sad stories (me included: I once told me about something
my father had said that had hurt me deeply, and he started laughing - but he was not being insensitive, AT ALL.
he later said he was so sorry I had to go through that).

Does this happen to you as well?
Have you developed any strategies to cope with that?

Thank you in advance!
K.

I laugh when someone beeps at someone else on the road, I don't understand why people are so easy to get offended by very minor problems on the road, I laugh when people start audibly tutting or muttering when a cashier is taking too long, it's ridiculous, I laugh when people trip up or drop something I dunno why I find it amusing. I don't laugh if someone gets hurt or is upset but if there is something legitimately humorous within the context I laugh at that part and explain why it's funny and that I am compassionate and understanding of the rest of the emotional content. I laugh when a newscaster's voice cracks or they get all flustered when they are stuck with nothing to read for a minute.

I have issues understanding why something upsets someone else sometimes, an example is my brother abhors spiders and gets close to tears, I have often spent literally 15 minutes lecturing him on the misunderstood aspects of the creatures and he shouldn't get so worked up, or I laughed in the past when he was hyperventilating about seeing one, but I do comprehend that he's upset and eventually figure it out, I dunno if that is inappropriate it's just how I process the fact he is upset by something I am not and work through a suitable solution.

You ought to ask him why he has such a response, perhaps it's a defense mechanism as he is uncomfortable or maybe he does find something funny within it and doesn't think the thing as a whole is anything to chuckle about but is focusing on the part he finds funny.

I think that some of us just have our emotions closer to the surface and bubble over more easily than other do.

Through observation and the nuances of social skills people learn what is appropriate and what is not and learn to supress their true reactions in certain situations. Obviously, if you have trouble with social skills it's more difficult to figure out what is appropriate and what is not.

Laughter is often a response to a surprise. It is a natural reaction to laugh when surprised. Afterall the punchline of a joke is a surprise.

I was told a long time ago that laughing and crying are results of the same emotion. That has been my experience.

My mother and I used to get into giggling fits when in church. Even though she was actually quite devout, still she was as bad as me for starting to laugh at stuff. Something would set us off, like the organ player hit a bum note and we'd start snickering. I'm laughing now just remembering!

But I've heard that a lot of people, NTs, everyone basically, starts giggling in a church service at one time in their life or another -- it's kind of a thing. It's something about the more gravity a setting requires, the more you react with the opposite.

True, it does happen!
It happened to me a few times when I was in high school... but in a church not yet
(maybe coz I avoid it )