I’ve been in situations where I thought I loved people with all the meaning the word ‘love’ could carry. And after fallouts of nuclear proportions, I always realize one thing: those persons never made me laugh. Sure, during the friendship (or in some cases, ‘friendship’) of course there were happy moments, but they never made me laugh, not in the specific spontaneous, unforced way that stems from who a person is—the fullness of their being, their personhood, whatever you want to call it. Of course, I’ve smiled or chuckled with them, but the laughter wasn’t glorious wellspring, just the result of myself being the source of humour, or… I was in a happy mood simply because I loved them.
But on the flipside, there are people who don’t have to say a word, and I’m already laughing my guts out. I raise an eyebrow once, and they’re already reading my mind, and in a split second we both laugh. Each of us would rush to get the first word in. Such colourful, fulfilling relationships. Such glorious upward spirals.
I’ve come to realize that those people?
I’ve been in cahoots with them at some point in our lives. There was a shared chaos, and during that instance (or multiple instances) I could count on them to feed that chaos alongside me.
Humour, I believe, needs context. It’s one of the reasons I’m a huge proponent for friends-to-lovers, why I’ve only ever done friends-to-lovers, and believe meeting people from the get-go knowing you’re both there for the purpose of romance is simply inferior. So humour needs context, and the context of friendship, especially, is so fertile for humour. Mischief is such deep magic to play with. It’s one thing to share love with someone, but to have shared a mission? A long-running inside joke? You only have to do it once—then it’ll become a shared context for laughter for decades to come.
With whom would you take teamwork to questionable levels? Questionable places? Maybe it’s trying to convince the closing shift of a restaurant to make one laaasssst milkshake. Maybe it’s crafting the dynamic of a Whatsapp conversation together behind the scenes to see a common enemy trip on their own ego. Maybe it’s eating 100 sticks of satay together and weeks later, wonder how the hell did we eat all that?
Two weeks ago, over DMs, my friend Dinie and I laughed over a shared experience we had—a shared mischief. But we didn’t experience it together. We’re from the same hometown, but we were in different years, different friend circles, but we had been in the exact same cahoots with our respective friends. As she recalled the mischief she had with her friends, she didn’t even have to finish her sentences, and I was already typing back my response because I perfectly understood what she meant. Let’s just say, it was about forbidden trips to the vending machine. Funny, how a trip to a vending machine in 2017 has sustained us and our friends with laughter years down the line, not just from how awfully stupid things were, but the fact that we were together in that stupidity, and still together now. In these relationships, humour isn’t just something that happened in the past; it’s a quiet conspiracy that trails through time, through our time together.
Nevermind what I think of the Harry Potter franchise in 2024, but I recall in the very first book, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione had beaten a massive troll unconscious. And at that point, they weren’t good friends yet. The book read;
There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.
I think sharing a mischief also doesn’t have to be a physical activity. I think sharing a solidarity works as well, humour and love from the place of shared values. The silent understanding that you both believe in, and stand up for, the same things.
As I grow older, and so do my personal relationships, the timeline of my life extends, and the moments when I was brave, foolish, scheming, and mischievous with my friends become so memorable that they hold a weight equal to, if not greater than, my griefs. I’m glad I have those memories to be grateful for. I’m glad through all the embarrassment and close-calls we’ve had, those people continue choosing me, to witness more of my laughter and to make more context for it, together.
And that’s where I find the difference, I guess. I know for a fact how being desired is such an ugly experience without respect. Being respected is nowhere near warm as being loved. And I’ve been contemplating—if I would be willing to have love without genuine, bursting laughter. I know how sometimes love can exist without laughter, but I’m not sure if I would ever want it to.
i really love this Aida <3 may you be showered with all the warmth, love, and laughters in the world