Social interaction

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This reminds me of the book about Ted bundy I read ages ago. He said that his whole life he never understood social interaction at all, and what made people want to be friends.

And yet he was a fairly popular law student, because he learnt to smile and nod along with everyone around him.

He's proof that you're quite correct in a sense. The downside is that if you're always faking you never get any meaningful connection out of it. It would be a lonely life to always be a fake.

try finding people you actually like?

There's a difference between smiling and just showing your teeth, if you know what I mean. ;)

Learn to smile in a realistic way, which means with your whole face, including your eyes. For the most part though, just smile and laugh when it feels most natural to you.

Make sure you aren't laughing at someone's inside joke. That's embarrasing!

I smoke during social interactions.

Don't pretend to be interested in lame people.
Just find some people who are interesting. :)

You sound like a friend of mine. I'm a fairly corny person who is amused easily and he's the opposite.

I don't mind if he doesn't laugh at my jokes.

To be honest, I was offended when I was first getting to know him. I thought he didn't like me at all. Now I understand that his personality is just reserved so I don't mind. But he does smile every often :) Smiling is nice.

How long before you hate yourself for not being you?

I never fake a smile or laugh. I don't care if I'm loved by the group or not.. if I don't act how I want to act, it's not worth it to me. I'd rather sit at home and laugh to something on YouTube than sit with a group of people who I'm not entertained with enough to have a real smile on my face.

Imagine something you do find funny. What laughter actually is a very fast expulsion of air from the lungs, so a passable way to fake laughter if you need to is just to force all the air out of your lungs as quickly as you can. Smile as you do that and there you have it: reasonably realistic laughter.

Or you could just do what shuggy said ;P

I understand where you are coming from. Its hard not to be a fake and play along when everyone else is on the same page. But I try to remember not to be a fake, and not worry about alienating myself from the group.

Because not everyone has to be in on a joke, its a natural permutation of social interactions that some people won't get it. Some people will not find a given joke funny even though everyone does, but that doesn't necessarily mean that social relations are bullshit. People are different. Thats what gives jokes value. Sometimes they'll land and everyone will share a laugh, sometimes nobody will laugh, sometimes only one or two people wont laugh. If everyone was always on the same page then humans would not be individuals, we would all be some sort of weird eu-social organism, like an ant hive or something.

Haha! Oh gee this reminds me of the high-school social network so much. What you're feeling is probably just an insecurity, everybody has a different sense of humour and you should not feel obliged to stroke someone's ego if they are simply not funny. Its only encouraging them!
And how would you feel if you were on the other side, the one telling jokes and you found out that the whole time people were laughing they were faking it? The only thing worse than not being funny to begin with is being under the false illusion that you are funny.
If you find something amusing you will find yourself laughing naturally at it. I'd keep it at that.

Fuck social interactions. "virtually everyone" is not true. Lauren faust is a bitch. 2Day i decided to try socialing with my sister and i got druck my sister laughed and i had to walk miles in the rain drunk uphill next tob a highway