English bridge players are a breed apart, not only from the rest of the UK population but from bridge players across the rest of the world.
In every English bridge club the majority of its members fall victim to a severe form of social dis-ease......not to be confused with disease.
As Kate Fox, an eminent sociologist , quite righted observed " social dis-ease borders on a sort of sub-clinical combination of autism and agoraphobia ( the politically correct euphemism would be socially challenged) ".
And who else but bridge players could illustrate this phenomenon better. They all show the classic symptoms in abundance : " lack of ease, discomfort and imcompetence in the field ( or should I say MINEFIELD ) of social interactions ". Add to all this " their embarrassment, awkwardness, perverse obliqueness, emotional constipation, fear of intimacy, and general inability to engage in a normal and straightforward fashion with other human beings ", there is never any problem in establishing the existence of this phenomenon.
Sadly, players who are quintessentially English always feel particularly uncomfortable in a social setting, such as a duplicate event. However, their behavioural responses can manifest themselves in one of two ways. " They either become over-polite, buttoned up and awkwardly restrained ", or they become loud, rude, aggressive and generally obnoxious.
Thankfully and mercifully, the English bridge players have, according to Ms. Fox, developed an antidote to their condition : English humour. " When God ( or something ) cursed these players with chronic symptoms of the English social dis-ease , HE softened the blow by giving them an English sense of humour " . This humour is distinctive by its sheer pervasiveness and its comic creativity. Virtually all table and bar room conversations " involve at least some degree of banter, teasing, irony, wit, mockery, wordplay, satire, inderstatement, humourous self-deprecation, sarcasm, pomposity-pricking or just plain silliness ". Humour inside an English BC is not a special, separate kind of talk : it is players compelled to press their default mode buttons. For them humour is like a life saving drug : they cannot function without it.
Some observers wrongly see this need to be funny as a reflex knee-jerk response to moments of anxiety, uncomfortableness, and awkward embarrassment, but the reality is that over time humour has become habitual and addictive . Every English bridge player appears to have adopted the mantra " when in doubt, joke ". Moreover, if anything said appears to have offended someone , the reply is always the same : " I was only joking ! ".
So there we have it : an established connection between English humour and social dis-ease, as evidenced by those who epitomise the two concepts best...................the quintessential English bridge player.
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