i'm also suffering from alienating people i just met by means of ill-adapted funniness. if one identifies this issue it's probably best to intentionally avoid attempting to be funny at all during the first or even first few interactions.
> 1. The effectiveness of clever on other people is highly contingent on outside factors, over which you have no control and of which you may not have any knowledge; i.e., just because you intended to be clever doesn’t mean you will be perceived as clever, for all sorts of reasons.
> 2. The failure mode of clever is “asshole.”
2. What is funny also depends on the context. The same joke will land differently if you tell it on the internet, in a chat, on a date, in a pub, to a stranger to a friend etc. If you have a hard time understanding what the context does to a joke, don't make them.
3. The purpose of jokes (typically) is to lighten the mood and to ease potential tensions in social situations. If you dice a 0 on joking however the outcome will be that people will see red flags and connect you with that weird guy that totally overdid it for them. If you are constantly rolling zeros, maybe stop rolling because it is hurting yourself.