"You Know I'm just joking!"

“You know I’m just joking!” How many of you have heard this from someone after you just told them something serious and they responded back in a joking manner? I’m sure a lot of you have! I’m a lover of laughter and I love making people laugh. I’m not sure if everybody knows this about me but those who are closest to me know this side of me very well but I think it’s pretty obvious when I’m being serious. What ticks me off is when I’m being serious and someone doesn’t take me seriously and responds in a joking manner. Of course I would get annoyed! Who wouldn’t? I’m sure many of you can relate to this. Even if it’s a random moment and all of a sudden I say something serious, I expect to be taken seriously. Whenever somebody jokes about something serious that I had just said my response is either silence or a smart ass comment and if it’s the latter all of a sudden I get the overused phrase “You know I’m just joking. That’s the problem with you sometimes! You take everything seriously!”. Really??? Are you kidding me?!? I’m shaking my head and thinking to myself, did I sound like I was joking at all because as far as I remember I wasn’t laughing when I was saying something! Some people just don’t know when and how to joke! I think the worst I have ever experienced was when somebody joked about my preference? That totally flipped my lid! How could you joke about such a serious matter? I was so offended and felt disrespected so I said to this person, “How about we trade places for a day and let’s see? How about that?”. Well that quickly shut them up! I guess my point here is that try opening up your ears for once to someone, when they are saying something because if you do that then you’ll know if they are being serious or not and so you know exactly how to respond as well. Also think before you speak. For all you know they could be telling you something so serious that your response could actually save their life. Just think about that.