If you don't laugh, it just seems mean

A couple of years back, I received a set of DVDs for the first season of "How I met your mother" for Christmas. It is a show I have often enjoyed when it is on the TV though I rarely go out of my way to find it.  One of the episodes caught my attention. In it Barney, the self declared "awesome" one of the group whose exploits are (in his own words) "legend... wait for it... dary", plays a prank on the main character, Ted. Towards the end of the episode, just before the pay off, Barney explains what he has done to the rest of the group, and is greeted with silence. He encourages them to laugh because "if you don't laugh it just seems mean". The lesson of course being that it is fine to be mean as long as it seems funny.

It was an episode that I was reluctant to watch a second time. The main reason is that I don't laugh, and it does seem mean. Or more precisely, it seems mean so I don't laugh. I find it difficult to laugh at some of the mean humor that people/TV shows/movies employ. One of the reasons is that it takes me back to