Psychology says adults who laugh too loudly at jokes that weren’t that funny aren’t fake, they learned early that being the easy one in the room was the cheapest form of belonging available

The choice happens in a fraction of a second. Someone at the dinner table tells a joke that lands somewhere between mediocre and forgettable, and you feel the small fork in the road inside your chest: register the truth on your face, or laugh a little louder than the joke deserved. You laugh. You always laugh. By the time you are old enough to notice the pattern, the laugh has already done its work for so many years that it feels less like a decision and more like a reflex you inherited from someone you used to be.