A great way to establish rapport between two people is to share a laugh. But it’s an approach that has its perils.

Among those perils are irony and sarcasm. Those two forms of humor should usually be avoided—particularly in emails or texts, where, without the benefit of hearing your tone or seeing your body language, such statements can be taken literally. When that happens you can end up belittling someone else and yourself in your listener’s eyes.

These days, I tend not to tell jokes, which the person may already have heard, and which I might mess up in the telling. Instead I look for humor—a personal anecdote or an insightful statement made by someone else. I’m all for self-deprecation, where I’m the only person who looks foolish.

You’d like an example or two? My wife and I have custody of our thirteen-year-old grandson. His fourth-grade teacher sent home a worksheet he had to fill out. Among the questions was, “What is your goal for fourth grade?” Alex wrote back, “To endure the year.”

Or here is an insightful statement gathered by Loyal Jones in his Appalachian humor books. It’s a particularly rare piece of political humor than can be enjoyed by anyone on either side of the political spectrum:

“If God wanted to us to have elections, he would have given us candidates.”

People who are not humorous should definitely not try to fake it while establishing a relationship—it’s a quick way to lose credibility. But if you pay attention to the world around you, the world is a very humorous place. Share that real humor and you can cement relationships. JSperry