if a man says something to you that makes you extremely uncomfortable, and when you bring up the fact it made you uncomfortable he tries to justify it as being “just a joke!” do not fall for it. in fact, I believe this is a justifiable ground to completely cut a guy off. jokes are supposed to be funny, and if what he says is not even funny but straight up offensive as hell, or maybe even confuses your emotions, don’t give this guy a chance. reasons why “it’s just a joke” is a excuse and not a good enough reason include:

• this statement demonstrates a serious lack of maturity and accountability. an LVM would rather try to make you feel like you’re over insensitive, rather than to hold himself accountable for his shitty behaviour and work on it.

• this is a very subtle but real form of gaslighting. especially this, paired with the sibling statements “you’re overreacting” or “you’re so sensitive” etc. however the statement on its own is just as bad, as it still implies that your feelings are not only invalid but non-sensical and that YOU should be the person to work on your feelings (that you have completely validity for btw, never ever let anyone doubt your gut instinct, it is the only thing that will never lie to you).

• if, in particular, this joke was a weak attempt at ‘dark humour’ then this could be a reflective of their genuine values but try to downplay it in the name of something much more lighthearted such as humour. have you ever heard an LVM make a joke about fucking his own mum in the name of ‘dark humour’? exactly.

• again, jokes are supposed to be FUNNY. if an LVM says this to you in response to a negative reaction over something he claims is a joke, this guy simply lacks a genuine sense of humour and you need to drop him. do you want to spend the rest of your life fake laughing at his shitty jokes?

an example of this I (21F) experienced this is when I agreed to stay friends with a guy after a situationship and he straight up said he didn’t want a relationship (I’ve learned my mistake lmao), and I was just about to start watching a TV show and he had rang me to ask if I wanted to meet him in a few minutes, and I had told him that I couldn’t as this show was about to start. he hit me with BS statements like “whattt, but I’m only a few minutes away from you now (we live in the same area)”, “I just wanted to see my friend thoughh”, “you can’t watch this show on catch-up?” and alarm bells started ringing in my head. I told him no and he replied “enjoy your TV show” in the most bitter tone and I hung up on him. after the show, I had decided to ring him and I confronted him about why he was speaking like that and he said? that’s right ladies, “I was joking”. and in the most condescending and stern tone that was. from what I was witnessing, not only did this guy try to display controlling traits towards me, despite not even wanting to get me in a relationship with him, he also had the audacity to avoid apologising and instead tried to gaslight me into thinking that I was being overly sensitive. I blocked him straight after that call.

TL;DR - jokes are only jokes when they’re funny. block that motherfucker!!