Hey guys so I've been trying to learn this shit for a couple months now, not to try and pick up or anything but to improve my social life and get out of my approval-seeking mindset.

First something really important: As with anything, you gotta say "why am I pursuing this? Am I trying to impress others? Am I seeking validation?" Here's my answer: no. I love being funny, love being funny with my friends (who I have no reason to impress because I know they love me unconditionally whether I'm funny or not), love being able to find things funny and laugh. I've always been one of those people who cannot have a good time unless something hilarious is happening. Realised there were a couple things I did that made me heaps funnier and just generally more creative in my thinking. I hope this advice is of good value to you, really glad I get this opportunity to share it, take what you will, good luck:

Humour is something you gotta attack from two fronts: maximising creativity and using existing patterns. Here they are in more detail:

Front #1: Being comfortable in your social environs. When you're with people, you find it difficult to be funny? That means YOU'RE NOT IN STATE. When you're with your friends, you're relaxed, carefree, not trying to impress them, not outcome dependent and totally self-amused - and therefore you're attractive. You should be able to emulate that shit ANYWHERE - ANY situation. Job interview, talking to people, talking to your lecturer, talking to kids, whatever. That energy shouldn't falter - that's one of the keys to core confidence and it makes you immediately attractive. You lead the energy and others mould around you, you don't try to mould around others' energy (another recent epiphany I had)

You gotta work on getting in state (and it's hard at first), read a lot of material on the stuff I mentioned, find it on youtube and get out there and practise getting in state and not caring what other people are thinking of you (I guarantee this is the reason you can't perform around people you don't know - coz you care what they think deep inside). You need to be comfortable to let your brain go to town on thinking up all the weird absurd shit that brains are designed to do in state and letting it flow.

Front #2: The actual content of your humour. You gotta work hard for this. I mean HARD. Watch TV and radio and real life and events and WHATEVER and write every fucking hilarious thing down. You'll start to notice patterns emerging. So for example, the other day, my friends had this exchange:

A: What kind of shampoo do you use?

B: On my beard, you mean? (she's female)

A: Haha, yeah on your beard

B: Just the usual household drain cleaner

A: That works?

B: Yeah gets all the leftovers out of my beard. Doubles as a colon cleanser

I'd notice that what's funny is first of all the obvious violation of norms (females don't have beards), devaluing the importance of something (drain cleaner is actually really dangerous, especially as a colon cleanser), playing up inside jokes (we're uni students and always complain we don't have money, so doubling your shampoo as a colon cleanser is that much funnier) and continuing down the path of a joke once it's started can be hilarious itself (she has a beard, so what are the implications? having a beard implies food can get stuck in them, etc).. However, the most important thing, I believe, was the tonality they were using with each other - it was almost as if they were about to crack up at the next thing the other was gonna say even though she was really trying to go deadpan.

I found that you get the patterns down as a habit on how to tell different kinds of jokes (including your tonality and facial expression) while being in state (and therefore your mind is producing absurd creative fucking beautiful images all the time that you can draw from) means you have an ENDLESS reservoir of funny to draw from. You can ALWAYS be self-amused in any circumstance because as long as someone's said something, you can take what they said and turn it into gold and hopefully play along with each other which lets you and the person/people you're with be immediately in a fun-loving place.

Bonus Front: Having the mindset that everything is a joke really helps. If you look at something and go "what amuses me about this?" you can generally have a much happier life. For example, getting rejected, being nervous around new people (how hopelessly human), falling down the stairs, whatever - these could be traumatic but you look at it and laugh and you've suddenly changed your whole outlook. See everyone as your friend instead of a threat. For example, if you ask someone for directions and they say fuck off, say "no dude I actually have no idea how to get there, fucking show me, man". Keep taking everything they say as a joke, and then suddenly they will themselves think "oh no I was just joking about what I said" because you've given them an out to their rudeness (something I finally figured out in the last couple of days, really bothered me for a while). You've moulded them to your reality. You have this mindset and in ANY situation, you can be a fucking unreactive, self-amused boss whose value is high as fuck.

I have learnt SO FUCKING much on some other completely different shit as well and I'm gonna be posting more stuff, so expect it! Really excited to share as I learn, hope you find this useful. PEACE