Sense of Humour Failure?

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#1 Sep 4 - 11AM
Alibi_10
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Sense of Humour Failure?

I am part-way through Day 1 of NC - having taken on board all the advice on here. I have kept falling off the wagon to no avail recently .... BUT after the last diatribe, I hit the bottom and am RESOLVED.

He has tried to call several times today, I am screening my calls. It hurts like hell, because the messages say he wants to apologise (but I posted here about whether a Narc apology is genuine, and the general opinion was NO).

But the temptation to pick up and listen to the apology is overwhelming all the same.

Reflecting on what I don't like about him is all that is stopping me, and it made me think of a ludicrous argument. I had been helping him learn a foreign language, and whilst we were chatting about what He (lol) had been doing that day, I said (with humour) "Have you done your homework?". He went ABSOLUTELY BALLISTIC - and was like a kid saying "I am never going to do any again now you have said that"!! When I said I was just joking, he SCREAMED "Do I sound like it's funny? HA HA HA HA HA (in a scary laughing voice). He went on and on and on saying I disrespected him, he had already told me what he had done that day, and it did not involve doing his language tests ... I put too much pressure on, I was trying to make him look stupid, I had slighted him, I was insensitive ... in fact, the way he went on and raged and raged made me into the devil incarnate !!

IT WAS A JOKE ! Does /did anyone else find that the most innocuous comment can lead to such a tirade? It was the catalyst for him saying that he thought we should never speak again .... but there he is ringing to apologise .... and I HAVE to think how horrible he was to stop me picking uo.

Would be interested to know if anyone else has had this?

Sep 7 - 11PM
Susan32
Susan32's picture

"Are you the result of a virgin birth?"

The ex-Psych professor,in the beginning, liked harping on the Arthur Schopenhauer quote that the sexual act is the ULTIMATE CRIME--because it produces more sufferers. (Yeah, he ended up fathering twins-the irony) So I asked him, "Are you the result of a virgin birth? How did you get here?" sarcastically. He glared, narrowed his eyes, and angrily said I wasn't supposed to mock him... but he ridiculed me behind my back for ALL FOUR YEARS. Speaking of irony, the year he D&D'd me, Star Wars: Phantom Menace was released... with Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader being the result of a virgin birth.
Sep 8 - 12AM (Reply to #6)
terri
terri's picture

OMG!!

Whenever I would say or do anything that showed disagreement or questioned my exN, he would accuse me of "mocking him". I'm absolutely amazed at how their language is even the same!! How is this possible?

Believe in yourself!
Terri

Sep 8 - 1AM (Reply to #7)
Susan32
Susan32's picture

Well, he's certainly being mocked now...

I think the ex-P hated mockery but didn't mind being hated. Or admired. When I disagreed with the ex-P,he'd accuse me of "not listening",or if I were talking about MYself, of being "narcissistic" or "lacking focus." The ex-P would nearly have psychotic breakdowns during the Q&A sessions after his lectures, he'd get THAT angry. His students feared his temper (and probably still do) Sometimes, the ex-P would go silent if he KNEW he was wrong. Yes, it can be called stonewalling/withholding. I could bring him to a standstill. I'd ask him if he had a partner (any gender)--and he'd go silent, giving a guilty look. Once, I was talking about how several of his colleagues hadn't gotten tenure, and I said they were EXCELLENT teachers, and he'd go weirdly silent and just glare.
Sep 4 - 7PM
Susan32
Susan32's picture

Totally humorless

The ex-Psych professor totally lacked humor... unless it was cruel and at the expense of others. He liked joking about meat eaters' brains dissolving due to mad cow disease, and he'd joke about my "idiotic smile" (quoting Tolstoy) He could NOT understand why people mocked themselves. He saw it as a terrible moral failing, as totally pathetic. He said early on he didn't mock himself. He was deathly afraid of people mocking him behind his back... Yet he was the professor who inspired the MOST masturbation jokes, and jokes in general. He was the most ridiculed professor. His explanation? That it was people's "defense mechanism" and that they were defending themselves from him.
Sep 4 - 12PM
aceonelady
aceonelady's picture

long toes...

I was teaching my ex N dutch,which is my native language....here we say people like them that cannot take a flirty joke or a comment that is meant to be funny,we say they have LANGE TENEN MEANING LONG TOES....because they get angry about a little funny comment and take it like if we were stepping on their lange tennen...i told him that,laughing and yep,he didn't talk to me the whole weekend....

Aceonelady

Sep 4 - 11AM
TNR1
TNR1's picture

Taking things "literally"....

Yes...there were lots of times I would say something in a cute or humorous or flirty way and his response would be a literal one. I used to question myself, wonder if I hadn't sait it correctly or with the right tone, but I do think lack of empathy plays a role in how things are interpreted.
Sep 5 - 6PM (Reply to #2)
onwithmylife
onwithmylife's picture

very little if any humor

the guy I use to go with had a little sense of humor at the beginning but after several years that was gone and espically anything and I mean even the most harmless comments. absolutely no self deprecating humor, none, zero, because his inner self was sooo fragile and all he had was his fake, false self, so any comments about him would send him into a frenzy of anger and rage.directed at ME of course.I know realize all that anger and rage that i took from him and all the women before me, was because of what happened with him and his mother in his upbringing, relieving the same experience with all the women in his life, like groundhog day,over and over again..........