Do We Laugh at Ourselves to Regain Control Over the Situation?

by Sopho Kharazi

Throughout my life, I have experienced a lot of social interactions in which I represented Ms. Awkwardness. I do not want to get into details about the most recent one, because it still makes me cringe when I think about it. Probably, that is why this blog has been collecting dust on my desktop since February. However, just to give you the idea, everything happened in a bar where I accidently met a guy I liked and as most girls, I expressed this feeling by being a total ice queen towards him. On my way home from Cringeville, I played the scenario over and over in my head and cringed to the bones. But I was not necessarily in a bad mood, I was looking at it very funnily. Epictetus once said that “He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.” And I do agree with him. Usually, I am the person, who does not take herself too seriously – I just know how to laugh at myself and move on. However, this specific event has opened doors to an interesting question for me: do we laugh at ourselves to regain control over the situation?

Basically, on my way home I decided that I needed other people to laugh with me at me, so I texted in a group chat of my Georgian girlfriends and for the following hour, we devoured myself and the whole situation with the darkest humor possible – and I enjoyed every minute of it. But today, I realized that yesterday’s act to text my girls was an actual urge. Now that I am recapping previous similar situations, I see the exact urge to act this way. Well, according to the researchers, apparently such behavior is good for our health. But why is this pattern so dominating? I sat down today and started organizing my thoughts about this topic. I realized that I do absolutely think that in most cases we laugh at ourselves to unconsciously regain control over specific situations. For example, I have acknowledged that my self-deprecating humor originated out of the desire to be the first one who would laugh at myself, so that I felt in control of how I present myself post-event: “oh I know I was behaving as a weirdo and obviously that person will never want to talk to me again.” Hence, automatically, I control the outcome of my awkwardness by already letting others know that there is no way this social interaction with this person continues and I am okay with it, I am chill. But am I though?

As I said, I have been in such situations multiple times. And only now I have observed the pattern closely: I laugh at myself, next day I still cringe but laugh, and by the evening I feel sad because I realize that what I was saying while laughing was true – I was awkward and communication is over. And then this sadness transforms into self-pity because I am not necessarily sad about losing the person, but I am sad because I feel I presented myself stupidly. So, it all comes to ego in the end. I laugh at myself to regain control and boost my ego but in the end, I realize that I truly feel stupid which makes me feel disappointed and insults my ego. So, now it leads me to the thoughts of how ego-centric we as human beings are. There are so many perspectives from which I could perceive this event: a) oh I should improve my communication skills and let me work on it; b) oh I am sad that I did not get to know the person more, because maybe I could gain a new interesting friend; c) oh I hope my awkwardness did not make them feel bad about themselves. But no, all I concentrate on is how I am perceived in this situation by the third party and by myself, and how it effects my ego.

I really did not mean to go into this rabbit hole, but I thought, if I am still thinking about this issue, probably there is more layers to it than just cringing.

Of course, I also do comprehend the idea that if we laugh at ourselves and our mistakes, we forgive ourselves more easily. I am a very self-critical person. I can delve at things that I did 10 years ago and feel bad about it and punish myself for it today. My old therapist struggled with this issue with me. But I do have to say that more I laugh at myself, easier it is to move on. Even today, if I remember those events, I still cringe most of the times, but also laugh because in my memory they represent something funny.

But I would like to hear from you, why do you laugh if you do at yourself? To forgive? To control? To explain? Or just to have a good laugh?