Exclusive Humor and Rock Stars

I posted about flavors of friends earlier.

I neglected to mention one particular brand that I think a lot of us have.  This relationship thrives, even at times wholly depends, on one strange phenomenon:

Inside jokes.

It's not hard to believe that shared experience is a foundation of humor.  Think of the classic you-had-to-be-there anecdotes or any bit or routine from Seinfeld ever.  We love feeling included.  We're "in" on the joke.

I've got a good buddy, very talented guy, a lot of fun to be around, but we're very different.


*seriously, click the link and listen to this kid, he's awesome*


He's the life of the party, spastically jumping around, strumming madly on his guitar, and serenading the ladies.  He's a crowd pleaser, a clown, a rock star.

I'm more of a wallflower, reserved and deep-thinking.  I like to know what I'm going to say, when, how and to whom before I open my mouth.

We worked together as volunteers in Bulgaria and had a lot of fun doing so.  He was a master of guitar and had brought one over with him; I had bought one for cheap from a guy who was headed home to the States and didn't want to lug it around and was learning slowly by myself.  He took me under my wing and taught me some basic songs, and we ended up doing a few street performances for fun as well as a low-key talent show.  We dubbed ourselves the next Rob Thomas and Dave Grohl and had a blast (guess who was who).  Our voices blended really well and I hope to be able to collaborate again sometime.

Somehow, the chemistry worked and we got along really well.  We were just different enough to create a lot of funny memories.  We served together only 6 weeks, but I probably got more stories from  those six weeks than from any other period of time in Eastern Europe.  We always found humor in the silliest and most obscure, trite things.

I called him to catch up while still out in Bulgaria and those listening in on my half of the conversation remarked:

"You guys just ran through like an hour's worth of inside jokes"

Looking back, I realized we had skipped over most of the pleasantries of catching up and gunned straight for our shared references and private humor.

B. and I had lunch with him last year, same thing.  She was lost 3 minutes in.



Is that all that's left of our friendship now?




Nah.

It's not that we're not friends anymore. We live in different cities, we study different subjects, we're headed for different careers.  But we can still enjoy each other's company.  It's fun to reminisce, but we can still live in the present.  He's the kind of guy where you can pick up where you left off no matter how long it's been.  I love people like that, who wear their hearts on their sleeve and emote so transparently.  They don't change, they stay just as positive and fun as they were in years past.

Besides, there are always more opportunities for inside jokes.


The key to being in on those great jokes?

You have to BE there.




What are your inside jokes?  With whom do you share the most?




S