What would life be like if we couldn’t laugh?
Mark Twain called humor “Mankind’s greatest gift” while Jimmy Buffett described it as essential to our mental health in his song “Changes in Attitudes, Changes in Attitudes” where he said: “If we couldn’t laugh, we’d all go crazy.” (On an interesting note, I thought this last quote was from Robert Frost, and it appears to have been widely attributed to him. Somewhere in heaven, I can feel my great uncle Billy, a devout Jimmy Buffett fan, smiling broadly.)
But not all humor is created equal.
Sometimes humor can be the tie that binds – or the one that breaks. In some friendships, this manifests in a “trouble” – someone who calls himself a friend, but whose behavior and humor annoys you.
After writing about humor as a defense mechanism for some and an aggressive tactic used by others narcissist and manipulative personalities in my forthcoming second edition Ten Keys to Staying Strong in a Power Struggle I read a study that looked at the role of humor in friendships when narcissism is present.
The authors (Altmann & Sauls, 2025) focused on measuring the two main categories of narcissism, grandiose and vulnerable, using adaptive humor and volatile humor in friendship.
As a summary for anyone unfamiliar with this type of narcissism – both types have a sense of entitlement and grandeur, but the grandiose type tends to be more domineering, manipulative, and exploitative, while the vulnerable type is often defensive, sensitive, insecure, dependent, and by turns shame to greatness
Adaptation and inappropriate humor is similar as it may sound, but in my work, it can be very difficult to detect in a social setting when everyone is laughing and putting pressure on the target person to laugh and not be too serious.
Fortunately, the authors of the study refer to Martin et al.’s (2003) humor framework, which describes adaptive (healthy) humor styles as partnership, in which humor lowers the tension connect and friendship—and self-regulatingwhere a person can take more stable a humorous view of life and circumstances. Discordant types of humor (those that cut) include angry humorwhere there is mockery, mockery, and it comes at someone’s expense self-deceptionwhich itself is negligible and is often used to obtain it attention and certainty.
The authors found that grandiose narcissists tended to use affiliative and aggressive humor, but perceived themselves as using positive forms of humor, while viewing their friend’s use of humor as negative. The authors noted that this is consistent with narcissists’ great tendency to devalue others in order to maintain their own sense of superiority. Meanwhile, vulnerable narcissists were more likely to use self-deprecating humor and to view their friends and humor styles with an idealized perspective.
When thinking about friendship, humor and revealing anger – it can be remembered that healthy friendship is engaged in humor, which invites true friends. laugh. But humor that repeatedly places one person as the center of a joke can be a form of social dominance—and a red flag that you may be dealing with a massive narcissistic rage.
It’s like a comment at your expense that makes everyone laugh and put you on the sidelines and feel the sting inside. embarrassment or insults.
If you react, the protection will come quickly:
- “Relax.”
- “I was just kidding.”
- “You are very sensitive.”
- “Can’t you be kidding?”
Because laughter provides social cover, this type of humor can be especially harmful because it allows someone to publicly or privately degrade you and avoid responsibility.
If you protest, you will be seen as naive or overly sensitive. If you remain silent, the abuse will stop – and the complicated relationship with the madness will remain.
But it is important to recognize a pattern of aggression – because dignity and psychological security cannot coexist with abuse, control and manipulation, no matter how skillfully they are disguised as humor. friendship.
True friendship doesn’t hold you back or require you to shrink, perform, or laugh at your expense to belong.
