Being the only one who doesn’t laugh is lonely for a minute and right for a lot longer.

Standing apart from a room that has already made up its mind feels much bigger than it is. For about a minute you are the odd one out, and your body reads that as danger. What the minute buys is a version of yourself you can live with afterwards, and that version keeps paying out long after everyone else has moved on.

You are not going to win the moment, so stop trying to. Keep your face still, do not perform the disapproval, and find the person who got hit once the crowd breaks up. One sentence to them afterwards outlasts anything you could have said aloud.