How to develop a sense of humor and learn to joke?
A sense of humor can be called a good gift of fate, since not every person naturally possesses such a quality. And many would very much like to learn to joke. After all, a person with a sense of humor is always in the spotlight, it is easy for him to find contact with others, to achieve sympathy of the opposite sex. But if you still want to become a humorist, at least for your family and friends, you need to learn more about how to develop a sense of humor and learn to joke.
Fundamental rules
It should be noted right away that learning to joke funny in one day will not work. This is a long-term work that requires an integrated approach. To develop a sense of humor, you need to change your attitude towards yourself and the world around you, first of all, increase your self-esteem. It will take time, patience, training. Let's take a look at what the changes should include.
- If you are an outgoing person, that's good. Otherwise, you need to start developing the ability to communicate with people. You can't do without it. You need to learn how to ask questions, maintain a dialogue, not be afraid to enter into a conversation, not avoid companies. You should listen to the moods of others, understand them, react correctly and try to determine how others treat you - whether it is pleasant communication or, perhaps, not very much. All these nuances are extremely important. Gradually, you will be able to improve your communication skills.
- Every joke is not just silly words released into space. It must have a meaning. You can and should joke on different topics, while all the sayings should be appropriate, only then the humor will be organic and will resonate with the interlocutors. For this you need to be an erudite person.This means that you need to read a lot (this will help expand your vocabulary), visit the theater, exhibitions and other cultural events, communicate with interesting people.
- Anyone who wants to knock those around him outright with his jokes must first of all be able to laugh at himself. Stories about funny situations from personal experience are always perceived positively, this is a sure way to win over the interlocutor and win the attention of the whole company. If you are a shy person who does not like to flaunt your feelings and emotions, you have to fight with this. This psychological barrier will have to be overcome.
- You need to be able to see the line between a funny and a stupid joke. It so happens that a joke may sound at the wrong time, offend or anger someone. You need to be able to feel the moment when you can joke, and when you shouldn't. In addition, you should capture the mood of people, listen to intuition. Jokes are jokes, but tact and dignified behavior have not yet been canceled. It is enough to joke unsuccessfully several times, so that later in the company such a person is perceived as not being able to behave adequately.
- To gain some experience, you need to watch more high-quality comedy shows of various kinds - on television channels, on the Internet, read books, watch comedies. All this will definitely benefit. This will allow you to learn to understand where good humor is, and where not.
- To let humor into your life, you need to be positive, find positive moments in any situation. And even look at troubles through the prism of humor. You need to smile more often and be able to be distracted from problems. Of course, it will not work right away, but over time, with constant training, the process will certainly go more successfully.
- There is one more important point - you should not imitate anyone and copy anyone. The value is to be an individual, to develop your own style. But this does not mean that at first, and even after, it is impossible to retell someone's jokes. Sure. You just need to try to make it really funny and not declare yourself the author of someone else's story.
- You should never be discouraged at the first setbacks. If you think a joke is funny, but no one is laughing, that does not mean that your humor is worthless.
Perhaps your friends are in the wrong mood today or you are in a company where people have a limp sense of humor. After all, it is different for everyone.
What does a joke consist of?
A joke is not just a collection of words. There are people who write funny monologues, and every time a firework of jokes is born. But this is talent and a certain experience. To begin with, you should understand that a joke is also a very small, but literary work. Therefore, it also has a plot, a plot development and a denouement, although this all happens very quickly. But the most important thing about the joke is the unexpected twist. This makes it funny. The joke can be divided into the following components:
- the beginning, the code is a description of the situation;
- the so-called trap, which forces the listener to prepare for a certain development of events;
- surprise is a sudden twist with an unexpected ending that no one could even think of.
The point is that the seemingly standard situation that anyone can face in life has a completely non-standard outcome, for which no one is ready and does not expect to hear such a thing. Accordingly, this causes a reaction in the form of laughter.
Receptions
Wit is a valuable quality in everyday life. In any situation, you can answer with a sparkling joke, smooth out the conflict, defuse a tense situation. But not everyone is given such a talent, and therefore some will have to start from scratch, learn to coolly respond to any attacks, be able to keep oneself in society, be cheerful and arouse interest in both adults and children.
You need to find your own style and do exercises every day, study examples of other people's jokes, come up with funny phrases. This is the only way to develop your own sense of humor and gain self-confidence. The development of your abilities should start by considering the techniques that exist when creating jokes.
False opposition
The principle behind this construction of a joke is that the end of the joke does not correspond at all to the beginning, but this is precisely what is amplification. As an example, we can cite the following phrase from the work of Charles Dickens: "She had a pale yellow complexion, which compensated for the bright blush on her nose." The author gives such a description to the girl, and everything would be fine if the pale complexion compensated for the blush on the cheeks, but suddenly a nose appears, and this is what is already funny.
False amplification
In this case, everything is based on the fact that the end is a confirmation of the beginning, but this is at first glance. In fact, what follows is a refutation. As an example, consider the case when Heine shared his opinion about an acquaintance, comparing a lady with Venus de Milo, but at the same time noticed that she was just as old and toothless. Thus, due to such an ending, the meaning of this phrase is given to a completely different one.
Driving to the point of absurdity
The name speaks for itself. Any statement can be brought to the point of absurdity. The main thing is to answer coolly and to the topic. For example, a person expressed a thought, you can pretend to agree with him, but then turn it over so that the meaning turns out to be the opposite. This technique often uses various options for expressive means, exaggeration or understatement. Well, for example, the comparison will sound absurd: "As light as at night."
You can train in the process of communication every day.
Unexpected comparisons
This technique is very simple. You can choose absolutely any words and compare them with objects that are not at all expected in this case. You can, for example, say your hands are cold, like frozen dumplings, or your imagination is developed, like a tree. So, sorting through different objects and phenomena, you can come up with something really funny.
Absurdity
In this case, you need to use mutually exclusive concepts that will not be linked together by any logic. An example is the following sentence: "In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a dead princess." Or you can use the word in one sense, and then in another: "One scientist said that the earth is not round, it is black and dirty."
Mixing styles
This technique involves combining the important with the secondary, the high with the mundane. It is appropriate to use in any situation with friends. An example is the expression "grub of the gods."
Hint
The point is not to directly express your attitude to the situation, but with the help of other words, but in a way that is understandable. You can consider the following situation. Two people are sitting at the table, suddenly one of them puts his feet on the table. Another may say to this: “Do not be shy, put all four legs on the table,” thus hinting at the resemblance of a person to a cloven-hoofed animal.
Double interpretation of the word
This method is based on the use of homonyms. One word can have several meanings. For example, a braid is a hairstyle and an instrument of labor, a pen is an object for writing, door fittings and the diminutive form of the word "hand". And there are many such words in Russian.
Irony
We use these jokes quite often. So, you can call a stupid act smart, call a cowardly person brave, and call a dirty one clean. Based on this principle, it is not difficult to compose jokes.
Random comparison
Such a comparison occurs between objects that are not related in any way or are very distantly related. For example, how you can link the law and the pillar. It seems that there is no common ground. But both that, and another can not be crossed, but can be bypassed.
Paradox
The important thing here is to piece together conflicting things and make it funny.For example, you might say that the hardest thing in the world is lying on the couch and lounging around. Both paradoxical and funny. Whichever method you choose for a joke, you should always remember that humor should be in place. Not everyone perceives, for example, black humor.
In addition, it should be understood that sometimes it may not be appropriate to make fun of the shortcomings of people or situations. You need to try to catch this fine line.
Exercises
To learn how to joke, you need to train your sense of humor, even if it's not working out too well yet. You can pump any well-known joke or just return a friend who is upset with something to good mood. Trying to please a woman, cheer up your colleagues is also good workout that will help increase your chances of success. It is recommended to use some exercises to begin with.
- You need to come up with as many words for one letter as possible, and then make sentences from these words. Such an exercise expands the vocabulary (and this is very important), allows thinking to become more flexible every day. For example, they took the letter "v". They came up with the words: fork, magician, stuck, took, collar, culprit. You can make a sentence: "The magician took a fork, stuck it into the collar of the culprit."
- In a short period of time, you need to find as many associations as possible for one word. The more unusual and brighter they are, the better. In addition, you can come up with words that, on the contrary, cannot in any way be associated with these concepts. All this perfectly trains associative thinking. For example, let's take the word "summer". What associations? Sea, sun, seagulls, flowers, warmth, vacation, rest. And what can be completely unrelated to the summer? Sadness, cold, skates, ice, boredom.
- We are looking for words that have several meanings. We try to do it quickly and come up with as many words as possible. For example, a key is a door, a wrench, a key in the meaning of a stream, a key in the meaning of "clue".
- Find any item, like a jar, think of ten ways to use it.
- Think of two things that are not related in any way. Try to find these similarities.
- Watch a humorous program, try to classify all jokes: paradox, irony, hint, and so on.
- Open any magazine or newspaper, come up with your signatures for all photos.
All these exercises will help to develop quick reactions, develop a sense of logic, and make thinking flexible. This is exactly what is needed to develop a sense of humor and learn to joke funny and brightly.