A funny story becomes fairer when the absent person would recognize themselves in it.

There is a workable test for stories told about people who are not there. If they would recognise themselves in your version, hear the shape of it as roughly true and perhaps laugh, the telling is fair. If they would find a stranger wearing their name, the humour is being bought at their expense. The question is less about kindness than about accuracy.

Before the next anecdote, run that test quickly in your head. Keep the funny detail if it is true and drop the flourish that only works because they cannot answer. You lose very little and stay someone people can be absent around.