There’s a time and a place for humor, however, not everyone gets this. Not everything has to be a cutting joke or an edgy stand-up routine. Not every comment has to have a quirky response. And you have to be emotionally intelligent enough to understand your audience and where its boundaries lie.
Case in point, one anonymous internet user sparked a lot of anger online after asking the AITA online community to evaluate a comment he made. He made a very inappropriate joke about c-sections and got called out for it not just by his partner but also by people online. Scroll down for the full story and read everyone’s reactions.
Some people lack empathy and end up making very inappropriate jokes
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One internet user got slammed on the internet for the comments he made while dining out with his partner
Image credits: Alexandre Boucher / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
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Image credits: Alex Green / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Empathy and emotional intelligence are vital in social settings
Many of us know that being empathetic is a good way to go through life. But empathy can have a lot of practical benefits, too. For one, it helps you connect and bond with other people, which is good for surviving and thriving in society.
Beyond that, that feeling of connection you get through empathy lowers stress and is good for your overall well-being.
Furthermore, empathy makes us more capable of handling tough life situations, which makes us more resilient to burnout. Meanwhile, our relationship with empathy also indicates what values we hold dear in life. It’s our moral compass so to speak.
Different people have different tastes in comedy. While some are fans of puns, others are more drawn to dark humor and edgy comments.
But like with a lot of things in life, there really is a time and a place for jokes. And the jokes actually have to be good, not just random hurtful comments meant to shock the audience.
If timed right, a good joke can strengthen the relationship between you and your audience. It can ease tension and improve your bond. However, if you miss the mark with the content and the timing, you can endanger whatever relationship you’ve already built up.
To put it bluntly, the author made a huge mistake by joking about c-sections when his partner was clearly worried about her friend. The right thing to do was to be supportive.
However, the guy in the story opted for a sexist comment and then stormed out of the restaurant when he got called out for his behavior. That’s not the behavior of a mature adult. There’s a lot of room for emotional growth here.
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A big part of maturity is owning up to one's mistakes instead of throwing a tantrum
One of the first steps toward making any progress in terms of emotional intelligence is slowing down, thinking, and learning to put yourself in other people’s shoes before making any comments.
Another step is being humble enough to admit when you’ve made a mistake. A huge sign of maturity is taking responsibility for one’s actions. It means owning up to your blunders and sincerely apologizing for how you’ve affected the people around you.
Everyone makes mistakes. But it’s how we react to them (recognizing them versus getting defensive) that sets the emotionally mature apart from the immature.
Whether or not a joke will land depends a lot on the comedian, the joke itself, how it's told, as well as the audience. When it comes to humor, there shouldn’t be any topics that are off the table per se, but you really do need to be aware of the context.
Good comedy is about finding the balance between sensitivity and pushing against boundaries just enough to get a laugh. If your audience finds your comments distasteful, it won’t be laughing.
You should not be making quips and weird comments in the aftermath of something painful or shocking. Everyone you know has at least some things that they’re very sensitive about. If you know the person well, you shouldn’t press their buttons like this just to get a reaction out of them.
How would you have handled the entire situation with the author, dear Pandas? What do you think the best response is to sexist jokes? What do you think can help people be more self-aware of how their comments affect others? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Most readers were shocked by the author's immaturity. They called him out for his behavior
However, a few folks thought that everyone at the dinner table was in the wrong
