No Really, I'm Totally Laughing

Now that I’m in my new office, a nice side bonus (in addition to having a door) is being in a suite with a new group of people, including a few friends of mine.

Everyone in our building that needs to talk to someone and doesn't necessarily want to, you know, walk, uses the office’s communication tool of choice: the blessed gchat. I had just gotten off the phone when Stephen told me that it was kind of creeping him out that he could hear my voice from his office. (Sidenote: I don’t think a girl can hear enough that she sounds creepy.) Later on I absentmindedly typed “lol” in the chat box to something that he said, but didn’t actually laugh in my office. He noted that he liked being able to tell whether I was actually “lol-ing” or not, which naturally made me genuinely laugh out loud. Then I heard the laughter coming from his office, and naturally then REALLY got the giggles.

It’s true, though. I am definitely guilty of overusing “lol” (which, for the uninitiated, means “laugh out loud.”). You’d think I’d be stingier with my useage of the phrase, but truthfully I just use it mostly to acknowledge that I find what the other person is saying is funny. Then I just try to alternate its use with that of the very eloquent “hahaha.”

Very occasionally I really am laughing out loud, in which case I attempt to tell the other person this fact, usually by typing out “I really am laughing out loud right now!”

It certainly would be nice to know when people are truly laughing.

They should really invent an acronym for that.