There’s a joke I’ve been told a few times and every time I hear it, I don’t think it’s funny. I’ve heard it told two different ways now. The first telling I’ve heard goes something like this: A woman is in a grocery store at the checkout line. She’s placing her items on the checkout belt. Things like a salad kit, rotisserie chicken, some fruit….usual items. There’s a drunk man standing in line behind her watching as she unloads her basket. The man slurs as he loudly says “You must be single!” The woman turns, and asks “why do you think that?” The man, swaying on his feet, looks at the items the woman is purchasing and then back at her and responds “Because you’re so fucking ugly.”

It took me some time to really unravel what it is about this joke that I don’t find funny. It’s more than I just don’t think it’s funny; this joke makes my skin crawl. It’s because this is not a joke, but is a true story. Ladies, please raise your hand if you have ever had an unpleasant interaction with a drunk man. I can’t see you, but I suspect we are all raising our hands right now. I can’t help but believe that this ‘joke’ started out with one woman recounting the horrible experience she had while grocery shopping to a friend and then like a real shitty game of telephone, the story got passed around until it found a group of sorority boys who turned it into a joke. This so called joke then got passed around through the man-vine and became the antidote for every time a woman didn’t give them the desired attention they were looking for.

A joke can be used as a weapon.

This joke is the reason why women feel the pressure and need to always smile and please and placate. We have learned from experience that the drunk guy most likely will not stop at “you’re fucking ugly” but will continue to harass her all the way out the door. He may even follow her down the side walk, hurling slurs and attempting to touch, or grab. The drunk guy is dangerous. In most every situation, the drunk guy is dangerous. We are either tolerating the unwanted attention with a fake smile plastered to our faces or we are fighting off the unwanted attention, fake smile still in place because we are still trying to placate the drunk guy. Not because we are interested. We are never interested or charmed by this behavior. We do it all for our safety.

Not surprisingly, I have never heard a woman tell this joke because we all know the drunk guy in that story and we’ve all had relatable experiences. In fact, I wonder how funny the joke becomes when the circumstances are flipped. Recently, I heard a retelling of this joke. In his version of this joke, he’s the one the drunk guy is talking to, he’s the one the drunk guy calls ‘ugly’. The man telling this version of the joke did it so well that I didn’t even recognize it as being the same joke. His version was self deprecating, but also he had nothing to fear in this story. The man who told me this version is physically imposing. It took me a minute to see that this version did make me chuckle because there was no threat here. This version didn’t make me feel threatened.

Still, even with the change, this joke just isn’t funny. It’s mean and I’ve never found humor in meanness. The only fix I can come up with for this joke it to burn it.