So one day I get an SMS from an unknown number:

Hey guys it’s Megan, this is my new number :) x

While I appreciate "Megan" letting me know her new number, I’m pretty sure I don’t actually know anyone called "Megan". I wonder briefly if this could be some girl I interacted with at some point in the past? Someone I met via online personals? Or in a bar? With one or both of us possibly drunk? A girl I had somehow met and exchanged numbers with, but for some reason never followed up, and my long forgotten number was still in her phone. Possible, but unlikely. The name just didn’t ring any bells. So it was probably just a wrong number. I forget about it, but keep the message just in case there’s any more contact from the same number.

A week later, I get a missed call from that same number. I figure it went to voicemail, Megan heard my voicemail message, realised I wasn’t the person she though I was, deleted the number from her phone, and that was that. But no.

A month later I get another SMS from her, this time addressed to someone called "Brian". Now at this point I could have just replied and politely informed her she had the wrong number. But what would be the fun in that? So this time, I decided to respond with a some random misogyny. This is how the entire SMS exchange went down:

Megan:

Hey Brian are you still going to clean the shower tonight ? Because if so I’ll clean the bathroom and the rest of the house tomorrow.

Me (who she thinks is Brian):

Are you high or just drunk? I’m not cleaning anything. That’s woman’s work. And I know how much you love cleaning, wouldn’t want to deprive you of the pleasure.

Megan:

Who is this?

I could have pursued this further, but I had my fun, and left it at that. I figured she got the message by now that she has the wrong number, and that’s the end of that. But no.

About a month after that, I get another SMS addressed to "Brian", this time from a different number. What is going on? How stupid are these people that they can’t get their phone numbers right? This time, I decided to unleash the full smart-arse treatment:

Unknown sibling of Brian (I’m guessing):

Hey Brian. How you doing ? We’re staying up at Mum’s for a few nights over the w/e. You should come up Sunday, surprise her and stay for tea or something. I’m in the process of getting her to make spaghetti :)

Me (who she thinks is Brian):

The last thing I need right now is mum or her soggy overcooked pasta. Had another incident with a hooker last night. Now I’ve got to spend all weekend disposing of the body - I mean, evidence. Knew I shouldn’t have done all that cocaine. Don’t suppose mum still has any hydrochloric acid at her place?

My response actually went through a few "drafts" before I sent it. My initial reaction was just to send a simple, short reply saying "Brian" couldn’t get to "Mum’s" because he had just killed a hooker and had to dispose of the body. However, I don’t know who these people are, and whether they have a sense of humour, and they don’t know me and my twisted sense of humour. It also seems Australia in general is rapidly becoming a humourless nanny state. I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility these days to send a smart-arse message like that, which is obviously a joke, and have the Police turn up and ask questions about a non-existent hooker that has been killed. So I added some "layers" to the initial joke idea, in the hope it becomes more obvious it is actually a fucking joke.

About 10 minutes after I sent that, I got a call from Megan’s number (not the second unknown number, to which I had just replied). I let it go to voicemail.

A bit later I get an SMS from another unknown number, but this number looked very familiar to me — it was exactly the same as my mobile phone number, except for one digit! This must have been "Brian":

Brian:

Hey man. Apparently my sisters have been accidentally texting you trying to reach me. Your replies are gold. Keep it up haha

Well, so we know that Brian has a sense of humour, at least! I love the fact he found my replied so funny he just had to text me — a complete stranger — to tell me. There is also a slight irony here I think, in that he obviously found the whole thing hilarious, despite the fact I was messing with his sisters! I don’t think I was being overly mean — and that wasn’t my intention. I was mostly just amusing myself. Still, I find it interesting that he — as a man — found that kind of humour funny, even though it was slightly at the expense of his sisters.

The whole thing makes me wonder if gender plays a role in defining a person’s sense of humour. Do men and women find different things funny? Or is it more about an individual’s personality, regardless of gender?

I remember Craig Ferguson, on his show, once asked Eddie Izzard if he thought people in different countries had a different sense of humour, and found different things funny. I thought Eddie Izzard’s answer was very interesting. He said he thought humour was universal, but that wherever you went there was generally a "mainstream" comic sensibility, and a more "alternative" comic sensibility. In the same way there are mainstream "Top 40" bands, and lesser known and usually more edgy "alternative" bands, and different people will gravitate towards and appreciate one type of band over the other, it’s similar with comedy.

I wonder if it’s the same with what men and women find funny? Are there some things that men generally find funny, but which women do not? And vice versa?

It’s obvious Brian appreciated my little attempts at humour. But I didn’t get any idea of whether his sisters did. I suspect his sisters actually thought I was being a phenomenal dickhead. (And I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that assessment.)

All the women I’ve shown those SMS messages to have found them funny. But for some reason I think few women in the same situation would bother actually doing anything similar. Not because they couldn’t, but because it seems far more pointless to the female mind. I think for some reason, messing with people (especially random strangers) in this particular way is more of a male dynamic.

Or maybe I only think that because my experience with women has — for whatever reason — been skewed to those with a more "innocent" temperament. Perhaps I need to find some smart-arse bad girls to even out the score a bit.