Parties

I do not know why this idea did not come into my mind until just now, but I realized that I probably do most of my awkward laughter at parties, and in situations where I know I can get away with laughing and not offending people. At a party, you are moving around, introducing yourself to a lot of people, people don't know who you are and you don't know who they are. When you suddenly have a conversation with someone at a party, and something awkward happens, and you laugh, the two people, sometimes more, that are involved in the conversation don't freak out when the other laughs, and they often choose to follow this laughter in response to awkwardness with more laughter. When I say that the laughter is responsive to awkwardness, I mean that clearly the conversation has ended and there is now going to be some kind of awkward silence. At this moment, you start to laugh and try to pretend like you are laughing at something that you are recollecting from two minutes ago in the conversation. This second laughter, I think, doesn't make the situation more awkward, but it actually makes the situation funny, and something worth laughing at. Because, now when there is a collective laughter, it is almost like an unspoken agreement that you both think the situation is awkward, which thus makes it funny, which thus eliminates needing to laugh out of pure awkwardness, which then makes it easier to walk away from the conversation with some stranger that you probably didn't even benefit from regardless.