4.45pm. Girlfriend and I go to see The Conjuring. It is a horror film - a haunted house movie, like Insidious and Paranormal Activity.

6pm. We are at a tense part of the film. A character is being stalked by a ghost in a basement. The tension really is quite ludicrous. Then... a guy in the next row chuckles. It is strange. Then more people laugh. Instead of feeling scared, the audience is finding it funny! It is breaking my immersion in the film. Girlfriend leans over and whispers, "These asshole people!" I figure it is the North American response to horror films. I, being European, am grim-faced and serious to show proper empathy for the character in the film. 

7pm. The film ends. Girlfriend is curled up in her seat out of fear. She doesn't talk.

Dear Diary. Finally, she says, "Let's not go to see another horror film for a while."

Girlfriend doesn't like horror films.

I do, though. They're the only thing scarier than my own life.