Why people who can’t laugh at themselves are more exhausting than a toddler on Haribo
There’s a peculiar breed of human wandering about who treats their own existence with the gravity of a state funeral, and frankly, they’re more knackering than a three-day strongman competition. Every minor cock-up must be hidden, denied, or blamed on something/one else. Every mistake triggers a desperate scramble to maintain the facade, often accompanied by defensive anger or mortified silence. Every gentle bit of banter in their direction is met with icy hostility or wounded retreat, as if you’ve committed an unforgivable act of aggression rather than made a harmless joke. Meanwhile, the rest of us are over here taking the absolute piss out of ourselves and having a significantly better time of it, thank you very much.
Let’s talk about self-deprecating humour, that glorious British art form that confuses Americans into thinking we’re all clinically depressed when actually we’re just psychologically robust enough to acknowledge we’re occasionally ridiculous. Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: being able to laugh at yourself isn’t silly. It’s a bloody superpower. And the research backs this up, which is always deeply satisfying.
The Psychology of Not Being a Precious Snowflake
Self-directed humour (the ability to find genuine amusement in your own flaws, mistakes, and general ridiculousness) is strongly correlated with psychological wellbeing. Research by Martin and colleagues on humour styles consistently demonstrates that people who use self-enhancing humour report higher life satisfaction, lower anxiety, and better stress management than those who don’t.
Notice I said self-enhancing, not self-flagellating. There’s a world of difference between “I’m absolutely rubbish at parallel parking and once mounted a kerb whilst a driving instructor watched in horror” and “I’m worthless and everything I touch turns to shit.” One’s an acknowledgment of specific, often hilarious incompetence. The other’s a cognitive distortion that needs addressing with a professional, probably immediately.
The healthy version (let’s call it self-aware amusement) requires a genuinely stable sense of self. You need to be secure enough in who you are to find your own cock-ups entertaining rather than existentially threatening. It’s the psychological equivalent of being able to take a punch because you’re properly fit, not because you’re emotionally numb and dissociating.
Think about it. When someone shares an embarrassing story about themselves at a dinner party, what happens? People relax. The social temperature drops several degrees. Everyone feels more comfortable being imperfect around someone who’s already acknowledged their own fallibility. It’s social lubrication of the highest order, and it requires genuine confidence to pull off convincingly.
When Your Humour Becomes Their Ammunition
I’m a writer. When I do something embarrassing, daft, or laugh-out-loud funny (just like when I witness someone else doing something noteworthy), I often write it up and share it on social media. The time I let out an absolutely thunderous fart in the gym showers and scared the lady in the next cubicle? She let out the most quintessentially British “Goodness me!” you’ve ever heard. Brilliant. Everyone found it funny because it was funny.
But here’s where it gets properly interesting. I’ve been sharing these self-deprecating stories since I first logged onto Facebook. Over time, to certain psychologically maladapted individuals, these stories became something else entirely. Not evidence of confidence and self-awareness, but a catalogue of ammunition. Proof of weakness. A comprehensive dossier of failures to be weaponised during arguments or trotted out as evidence of inadequacy.
I’ve had two exes who couldn’t understand this at all. I genuinely think they came to hate me for it. Care to guess what they had in common? One turned out to be a genuine, literal psychopath (more on that delightful discovery in my upcoming book), and the other was held hostage by crippling insecurity and avoidant personality disorder. What a surprise. Not.
When you share your own embarrassing moments publicly, you’re demonstrating psychological security. You’re saying, “Yes, I farted spectacularly in a public shower, and it’s objectively hilarious.” The person who later weaponises these stories? They’re revealing their own psychological fragility with all the subtlety of a foghorn. They genuinely cannot conceive of someone being secure enough to acknowledge imperfection openly, so they assume you’re exposing weakness rather than demonstrating strength.
What’s actually happening here is projection wearing a particularly transparent disguise. They see your self-deprecating humour through the lens of their own fragility and assume you must feel the shame they would feel in your position. The idea that you might genuinely find your own mishaps amusing, that you might be comfortable enough in your own skin to broadcast your humanity, doesn’t compute. So they file it away as evidence of your inadequacy, completely missing that it’s actually evidence of your psychological robustness.
The Superiority Complex Masquerading as Confidence
Here’s the uncomfortable bit that’ll make certain people squirm: people who take themselves too seriously often think they’re displaying confidence. They’re not. They’re displaying fragility dressed in arrogance’s ill-fitting clothes. True confidence allows for mistakes, for looking daft, for being spectacularly wrong, because your sense of self isn’t dependent on maintaining a carefully curated fiction of perfection.
Research on narcissistic personality traits shows a fascinating pattern: grandiosity and ego-inflation typically mask profound insecurity. The person who can’t tolerate any challenge to their self-image, who responds to gentle mockery with disproportionate defensiveness, isn’t confident. They’re terrified. Their entire identity is built on a foundation of sand, and at some level, they bloody well know it.
Someone genuinely secure can laugh when they bollock something up because their self-worth isn’t surgically attached to never making mistakes. They can handle being the butt of the joke because they understand that one moment of looking like a complete pillock doesn’t define their entire existence.
There’s also a performative aspect to this that’s worth examining. The person who insists on being taken seriously at all times is performing a version of themselves they think commands respect. But what they’re actually commanding is exhaustion. Nobody wants to be around someone who requires constant validation and cannot tolerate the slightest dent in their carefully constructed facade. It’s like being friends with a Ming vase, constantly worried you’ll say something that’ll cause irreparable damage.
Cognitive Flexibility: Or, Why Rigid Thinkers Are Exhausting
The ability to laugh at yourself correlates beautifully with cognitive flexibility, that mental agility that allows you to shift perspectives and adapt to new information without having an existential crisis. Research in cognitive psychology shows that rigid thinking patterns (the “I must be perfect” or “I must always be right” variety) are associated with anxiety disorders, depression, and general psychological brittleness that makes eggshells look robust.
People who can’t do this are trapped in a prison of their own ego, constantly defending a self-concept so fragile it shatters at the first hint of imperfection. Sounds absolutely knackering, doesn’t it?
The rigid thinker lives in a binary world where things are either perfect or catastrophic, where being wrong about anything threatens their entire identity, where looking silly once means they’re fundamentally flawed. It’s an exhausting way to exist, and it makes them exhausting to be around. They can’t adapt, can’t pivot, can’t acknowledge when they’ve arsed something up because their entire psychological structure depends on maintaining the illusion of infallibility.
Meanwhile, the cognitively flexible person can laugh at themselves, adjust their approach, and move on without the psychological equivalent of a three-act Greek tragedy. They’re also significantly better company at dinner parties.
The Tyranny of Perfectionism
Taking yourself too seriously is perfectionism’s favourite outfit. And perfectionism, despite what Instagram wellness influencers claim, isn’t “just wanting to do well.” It’s a cognitive pattern associated with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and chronic dissatisfaction. Research by Frost, Shafran, and others demonstrates that perfectionism (particularly the socially prescribed and self-oriented varieties) is psychologically destructive.
When you can’t laugh at your mistakes, you’re operating under the delusion that mistakes are unacceptable. This creates a feedback loop of anxiety: fear of failure leads to hypervigilance, which leads to exhaustion, which leads to actual mistakes, which confirms your fear that you’re not good enough. It’s miserable and entirely self-inflicted.
The ability to find humour in your cock-ups breaks this cycle. “Well, that was spectacularly shit” followed by genuine laughter is a completely different neurological and psychological experience than “I’m a failure” followed by hours of rumination. Same event, radically different outcome, massively different impact on your mental health and the mental health of everyone unfortunate enough to be in your vicinity.
The Cultural Divide: Or, Why Americans Think We’re All Depressed
There’s a cultural element here worth acknowledging. British humour (particularly the self-deprecating variety) utterly baffles Americans, who seem to think acknowledging flaws means you’re clinically depressed rather than simply realistic. We’re a small island with delusions of grandeur and a history of spectacular cock-ups alongside genuine achievements. Taking the piss out of ourselves is how we stay grounded.
Americans, with their relentless “you can be anything you want to be” optimism, find this deeply confusing. They think we’re being negative. We think they’re being delusional. Neither is entirely wrong, but the British approach does seem to correlate with lower rates of narcissistic personality traits and a greater tolerance for ambiguity. Make of that what you will.
Research on cultural differences in humour styles shows that collectivist cultures and cultures with lower power distance (more egalitarian social structures) tend to embrace self-deprecating humour more readily. The ability to laugh at yourself requires acknowledging you’re part of a collective, that you’re not the centre of the universe, that your mishaps are part of the shared human experience of occasionally being absolutely rubbish at things.
When Self-Deprecation Goes Wrong
Let’s address the other side: when self-deprecating humour crosses into genuinely harmful self-criticism.
If you’re constantly making yourself the punchline because you genuinely believe you’re worthless, that’s not healthy humour. That’s a symptom of depression or low self-esteem requiring professional attention. The distinction lies in whether the humour comes from security or insecurity.
Healthy self-deprecation: “I’m absolutely rubbish at remembering names. Called my therapist by my dog’s name last week.”
Unhealthy self-deprecation: “I’m such an idiot, I can’t do anything right, everyone must think I’m pathetic.”
One’s specific, genuinely amusing, and delivered with the confidence of someone who knows that being bad at remembering names doesn’t define their entire worth as a human. The other’s a generalised attack on self-worth masquerading as humour, usually delivered with the desperate hope that someone will contradict you and tell you you’re wonderful.
If your self-deprecating humour consistently requires other people to reassure you, you’re not demonstrating confidence. You’re fishing for validation whilst pretending you’re not. And people can tell. It’s exhausting for them and ultimately unhelpful for you.
The Superpower Verdict
So is the ability to laugh at yourself a superpower? Absolutely. It demonstrates psychological resilience, cognitive flexibility, social intelligence, reality-testing abilities, and emotional regulation. People who take themselves too seriously are missing out on all of this. They’re also missing out on genuine connection, because nobody wants to spend time with someone who requires constant ego management and treats every interaction like navigating a minefield whilst blindfolded.
Life’s too short and too absurd to spend it pretending you’re not occasionally a complete pillock. The ability to laugh at yourself isn’t weakness. It’s proof you’re psychologically robust enough to acknowledge reality without crumbling like a cheap biscuit.
The people who can’t do this, who interpret your self-deprecating humour as evidence of inadequacy rather than confidence? They’re broadcasting their own fragility in surround sound whilst thinking they’re commenting on yours. That’s their psychological baggage to lug about, not yours.
You can spend your life walking on eggshells around people who can’t tolerate their own imperfection being acknowledged, or you can surround yourself with people secure enough to laugh at themselves and everyone else. I know which option sounds less exhausting and significantly more entertaining.
The question isn’t whether taking the piss out of yourself is a superpower. It’s whether you’re secure enough to wield it. Most aren’t. That’s their problem, their loss, and absolutely none of your concern.
Mistress Mind 
Leave a comment