If you’ve ever had the creeping suspicion that the world is secretly run by people who peaked in high school and never emotionally evolved beyond it—April Fools’ Day is your proof.
It’s a whole-ass holiday dedicated to deception. A calendar-marked excuse to test the tensile strength of someone’s trust in you, and then laugh when it snaps.
But don’t worry—it’s fine.
It’s funny.
You’re supposed to laugh.
That’s the thing that gets me, every single time.
Not the prank itself, but the part where you’re expected to smile through the sting. Where people look at you, see the shift in your expression, the way your voice stutters a bit because you’re trying to recalibrate in real time—and they keep laughing anyway.
Because the real punchline? It’s not the fake news, or the weird announcement, or the elaborate setup.
The real punchline is you.
You, with your sincerity. You, with your heart cracked open just wide enough for someone to toss a snake in and call it comedy.
I’ve had fake pregnancies dropped on me like a brick. I’ve had people confess fake feelings just to watch me freeze. I’ve been told people died. Relationships ended. Friends were hurt. Only to be met, moments later, with a grin and a "Gotcha!" like my body didn’t just shift into full-blown crisis mode.
It’s not clever.
It’s not witty.
It’s just emotional booby-trapping with better PR.
And the thing is—I’m not humorless.
I love dry wit. Dark sarcasm. Absurdity. Surrealism.
I love the kind of humor that flips reality inside out in a way that makes you think and snort into your drink.
What I don’t love? Being the prop in someone else’s low-effort theater of cruelty.
Because that’s what most April Fools’ “pranks” are, if we’re being honest. Lazy. Cheap. Emotional junk food made from expired irony and served cold.
People love to say, “Well, it’s just one day.”
Sure. And so is root canal. Doesn’t make it fun.
For people like me—people who’ve had their reality twisted for fun long before there was a holiday to legitimize it—April Fools’ is less “lighthearted mischief” and more “seasonal trust issues.”
It’s not even about being gullible. It’s about being human.
It’s about assuming, maybe stupidly, that when someone speaks, they mean it.
That when someone reaches for you, it’s not just to pull you into the joke.
That you can believe someone’s face. Someone’s tone.
That connection is safe.
And when you realize—again—that it isn’t?
When the people you love look at your stunned face and laugh like that reaction was the goal?
You remember, real quick, how dumb it is to hope for anything different.
I’ve outgrown a lot in my life.
I’ve outgrown people. Places. Entire versions of myself.
And you know what else I’ve outgrown?
Being the punchline.
So no, I don’t do April Fools’.
I don’t do gotchas.
I don’t find joy in watching someone else flinch.
If that makes me boring, so be it.
If that makes me “too sensitive,” I’ll take it.
Because at least I’m not the one confusing cruelty with charisma.
And honestly? If you need a national joke day to feel clever, maybe you’re not as funny as you think.
