Dude! I'm Being Sarcastic!

In my opinion, there isn't anything much more painstakingly frustrating then when something you say is misinterpreted to another person. I am a rather sarcastic person and most of the things that I say should not be taken literally. Seriously. I'm not being sarcastic right now. I promise.

So for me, it's really hard when something I say is translated differently than I anticipated it to be. Mostly because if that person interprets my words in a negative way and takes what I say to heart, then my comeback of "I'm just kidding!" will not be enough to make that other person feel better. Think about a time that someone said something that may have hurt your feelings and then they followed that with, "just kidding"...you didn't feel better did you? And I hate the fact that I might be doing that to other people when I talk the way that I do. I really don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Should I try to change the way I have spoken for the last 26 years and omit the sarcasm? (well, I guess it would be closer to 23 since I apparently mostly spoke gibberish the first 3 years of my life). Perhaps I should consider just continuing to tell people "Dude, relax. I'm kidding", even though I know that these latter two words just aren't good enough. I think that most people know that when we say something as a joke, in actuality we were something like 50% serious in what we said. Could that be true? But there's a difference between sarcasm and the "just kidding" kind of talk. At least I think so.



Another topic that has recently come up in my life is the whole misconstruing of things that I write in emails/letters/blogs. People who don't know me well enough to understand the way that I talk are much more likely to read my words one way when I actually mean them in a whole different light. For me, this really sucks! I don't want people to mistake my words and think of me in a negative way when it's complete sarcasm that's pouring out from my words. Should I change the way that I type now? So many questions to ask oneself. I know that a lot of people think of sarcasm as a very immature and the lowest form of wit, but it's all that I have!

A friend and myself once discussed that they should create some kind of font to show when one is using sarcasm in emails so that confusion can be avoided, and the two of us actually agreed on a way to show sarcasm when sending messages to one another. And guess what?? Today I found a company who did that very thing! It's called the SarcMark and it supposed to be inserted close to the sentence in which sarcasm is being used. You can upload it onto your computer and use it freely. Very cool. I just might look into this. It seems that I have no choice. Now my big problem is having to explain to every single person that I write emails to what the squiggly symbol is that follows every third line of my letters. Maybe it would be easier to just tone down the sarcasm and try to use real humour. I guess I'm going to have to be imaginative and witty from now on. This seems like a lot of work.

Tip of the Day: Lighten up!