Gelotophia

Interesting article in the Times today. I had never heard of gelotophobia but I think I have it. Do you? When I hear someone laugh close by I think it must be me they are laughing at. I immediately check my shoes to see if toilet paper is stuck on it.

"The British may pride themselves on their sense of humour but they are really an oversensitive, paranoid nation prone to gelotophobia — a condition in which sufferers always believe the joke is on them.

That, at least, is the punchline to one of the ideas presented at the International Symposium on Humour and Laughter; a six-day “humour summer school” hosted in Granada by a US-based group of psychologists, sociologists and linguists.

A typical gelotophobe hears a stranger’s laugh and believes he or she is the butt of the joke. In extreme cases this can induce sweating, palpitations, trembling or simply freezing up."