Humor and lack thereof

I'm not a funny person.

This depresses me.

I came to this startling realization today while reading an amusing blog. On Edge’s blog she has a link to Gretchen, and I clicked on it out of curiosity and found some incredibly fantastic posts. They just seem to exude humorous vibes -- there’s an underlying tongue-in-cheekness to it all that I love. And envy, I must confess.

I have never been a funny person, sadly. I’ve tried for years now, but humor just eludes me. I’ve finally reached a point where I’ve accepted the fact that I’m hopeless. Humorless. Unfunny. Boring. Humor must be something you’re born with -- you either have it, or you don’t. I, sadly, do not. I must have missed the humor gene. I can’t make great wisecracks. I am terrible when it comes to witty comebacks, because I just can’t think fast enough. Even sarcasm, when coming from me, tends to be misconstrued, misunderstood or simply stupid. And I’ve never had that great slapstick-comedy clownishness that just makes people laugh.

Which isn’t to say that people don’t laugh at me. They do. Quite loudly and quite often. But I think that’s more because I’m STRANGE, rather then because I’m FUNNY. There’s a major difference. I happen to be a very quirky person and this, obviously, causes some smiles, giggles and guffaws. Take the whole mismatched sock thing, for instance…..

But anyway, this severe lack of funniness has more far-reaching effects then just causing me to cross off “stand-up comedian” from my list of potential careers.

It affects my writing, too. Think about it. I can’t create funny, witty, sarcastic, amusing characters -- or, even more importantly, dialogue -- because I myself can’t up with that. How do you write in a character’s sarcastic, acerbic voice if you have no idea what she should be saying?!
And, naturally, lack of funniness makes this blog rather dull.

Can you learn to be funny, I wonder? Or I am doomed to a humorless existence for the rest of my days?

Any advice from the funny folk out there who are reading this would be quite nice.