Trouble with being able to laugh

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Hello. I'm new and this is my first post.

Does anyone struggle with laughing at appropriate times?

I can laugh, and I find things funny sometimes. But, I really struggle with laughing at what most people are laughing at. I don't understand most jokes unless there is some kind of playful or obvious explanation, like..
"Helen Keller walks into a bar, then a table, and then a chair" and "Did you hear about the two guys that stole a calendar? They each got six months." I think these are really funny and make me smile!

Sometimes when a bunch of people start laughing all at once at something, I get really startled and confused because I can't figure out how its so funny. Eventually, I will join in, but only because I find them so funny..plus laughing is contagious. Other times I feel out of place when I'm fully aware I'm supposed to find something funny, but I don't, and then things get awkward..but I am working on faking it at the right times.

It's really difficult sometimes because I feel so out of place when I don't know how to respond to jokes. I think it makes the joke teller feel a little bad too.

Welcome to WP!

I've listened to very popular comedians doing stand up and not laughed at all, while the audience is laughing in hysterics.

Thanks!

Me too. People have different senses of humour.

I have trouble laughing at inappropriate times more than anything. I sometimes laugh at bad/mean things that I find really funny, and no-one else is laughing. I also laugh when a situation seems hopeless, and other people don't like that because they're stressed out - I'm stressed to, but when something's irredeemable I think you might as well laugh.

One of my colleagues was really rude to our dept. manager's face this week and I had to try so hard not to laugh. That was a close one lol

I have to say in my own way that often I not only fail to recognize the subtle nuances of humor from a neurotypical standpoint but, even when I do laugh due to my mild Bell's palsy it tends to make me look like I'm some mentally ret*d child based on my appearance solely. Often I feel out of place in such scenarios

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

I too have experienced trouble in regards to laughing at appropriate and inappropriate times. During some instances when I laugh, I often sound like I have trouble breathing.

When I was in college my classmates would have TV nights where everyone would go to one person's house to watch TV and they always thought I was weird for watching straight faced with no reaction at all. That doesn't mean I'm not reacting on the inside.

Giggling is one of my vocal stims and I sometimes do it when I get a funny thought in my head, or when I have a lot of energy to burn off. But I do control this when I am in public.
When I'm with other people, I don't really laugh at anything. I tend to laugh more at hearing other people laughing, rather than at what exactly has been said or done to cause it.

Hawkz1 welcome to WP!

Don't trouble yourself about what you find amusing. I like you find boring what most people guffaw at. But, when I first met the woman who later became and is still my wife, one of the biggest things that attracted me to her was that we shared the same sense of humor, that we found the same things funny.

So maybe the same will come your way someday, that you will meet someone who you can share your brand of humor with and make a life together.

BTW, I loved your lines about Helen Keller and the calendar thieves. Humor that requires a bit of knowledge or thought is always better.

I too struggle with laughing at socially appropriate times. People tell jokes, show me some supposedly funny videos on the internet and I just find myself staring with a flat face and finding nothing amusing. I usually understand what part of the joke, video should be funny but a lot of times my sense of humor is not triggered at all and I think of these parts only as some kind of conventionally funny generalized actions and quirks. Sometimes I feel like a snob since I am more prone to laugh at some unexpected things which only I or a few other of my peers understand in a narrow topic or I laugh at quite seemingly random (but actually directly or indirectly associated with my personal life or mindset) things or things that are quite morbid. The last time I explicitly laughed when a friend of a friend told a story about an artist who traveled to the Middle East dressed as a bride to convince the Westerners that the Islamic world isn't that hateful and violent as is usually thought. But bang! - the 'bride' was raped and murdered in the western part of Asia Minor, not long after she had started her journey. When I uncontrollably laughed after I heard this part of story, I got the gazes from four other people around me. Then I realized that the story wasn't supposed to be amusing at all.

P. S. I don't mean to insult the Islamic fate by this. This kind of event might have happened in Christian Europe or Buddhist Myanmar as well so I am not making any distinctions on Islam here.

I often don't see why things are funny, even if most people think they are. If I don't find something funny, I cannot force myself to laugh, but sometimes laugh at other people laughing. I also find many things funny which others don't, sometimes inappropriate things. I find it hard not to laugh in these circumstances, even if I know I shouldn't.

Just because I don't laugh at something, doesn't mean I don't find it funny or entertainment...I won't laugh HARD unless it's extremely funny to me or it strikes my precise "funny bone" whatever that means.