Why do I laugh at jokes I don't actually find funny?

Picture it precisely: someone at the lunch table makes a joke about the new hire. The table laughs. You laugh too — half a beat late, watching yourself do it from somewhere just outside your own body. Later you can't say why you laughed. You just did. This is not deception. It is coordination, and coordination is older than speech — laughter synced a group before language ever did. The trouble starts when you never check the instrument. If the automatic laugh always wins and the private reaction never gets spoken, even to yourself, you lose your own reading. You stop knowing what you find funny, because you've stopped asking. This page will not make you laugh less. It will help you catch the half-second where the laugh starts, and decide — sometimes, on purpose — whether to let it run or to say something truer instead.