When someone is asking you a question or posing an interrogative statement that is Clearly the setup for a joke, what is the proper response?

I know the easy way out and the normal method is to answer them with a hastily concocted and likely incorrect response in order to allow them to finish the joke with the requisite absurd or ironic answer.

But to instantly surrender to their query seems dishonest to me, and worse, potentially undermining "The importance of the joke as a contrast to the audience's beheld truth".

Jokes in this form are simply riddles. Their contribution lies not in knowing the answer, but in finding the answer. I like riddles, and I'm terrible at them, which I hold is part of why I find so may things funny.

The counter-argument would be that such jokes are generally told amongst very small groups of well known individuals, and to figure out their joke and give the correct answer greatly diminishes it's overall enjoyment and the usual camaraderie for which such recreational conversation is even initiated.

I feel split between:

1: Throwing a monkey-wrench into the workings of the group dynamics by spitting out the answer and not just stealing the thunder, but muting it completely and then hurling the thunder into a volcano.

2: Destroying the spirit and power of the query by essentially telling the person "Yeah it's a riddle. Fuck you give me the answer so we can get this shit over with, fag."

7/10/2013 7:02:13 PM

3: Get a life.

7/10/2013 7:03:23 PM

Alternate thread title

How to be a dick in social situations or: I have no friends, here's why

7/10/2013 7:09:39 PM

^^Inconvenient
^ I dunno. I didn't submit any evidence for that conclusion. It's a question you silly goose

[Edited on July 10, 2013 at 7:11 PM. Reason : fads]

7/10/2013 7:09:52 PM

I know but I've been itching to use that X or: X bit for a few days and it just felt right.

7/10/2013 7:12:58 PM

Can you provide an example?

7/10/2013 7:13:55 PM

o man gonna make me whip out my "jokes for blokes" paperback?


"What is the difference between a dog and a fox? "

[Edited on July 10, 2013 at 7:16 PM. Reason : angry feet]

7/10/2013 7:15:47 PM

Example:

"How do you catch a polar bear?"

"Uhh with a net"

"No you cut a hole in the ice and encircle it with peas, when the bear comes up to eat the peas you kick him right in the ice-hole."

This is also an example of a long set up just for a play on words

[Edited on July 10, 2013 at 7:18 PM. Reason : .]

7/10/2013 7:17:06 PM

^garrison keillor really toed the line of taste with that one

7/10/2013 7:19:19 PM

it's "when he comes up to take a pea (pee)"

god damn

7/10/2013 7:19:27 PM

ahahahahahah

7/10/2013 7:20:19 PM

This is the extent of your social predicaments? Knowing whether to finish someone else's joke or not?

7/10/2013 7:21:06 PM

no. I feel the hypothetical answer to such a conundrum would better our understanding of one another.

The thread itself is a joke setup of this type.
jbrick83 and parsonsb chose my second stated option and actually included the insult rather than simply implying it.

To which, the punchline is that they bothered to answer at all and are probably into dudes

7/10/2013 7:29:49 PM

got 'em!

7/10/2013 7:31:22 PM

INCINERATION

7/10/2013 8:13:50 PM

DENTAL RECORDS WILL BE NEEDED

7/10/2013 8:29:22 PM