erinja:
Current job - Tired of people making jokes about it in multiple previous jobs, even though I only ever mentioned it in a serious tone, in a context of the concrete benefits it gave me (visiting friends abroad, people showing me around foreign cities, meeting cool people, etc). Took the opportunity of a fresh start in a new workplace; no one there knows I speak it. I strictly avoided mentioning it when I was in the training phase for new employees. I'm out of the training class now and I'm no longer with a huge mass of gossips IM'ing constantly. I would be inclined to tell the people I'm friends with. But then again, I found it massively disappointing in past workplaces where I mentioned it to people I considered friends, who then proceeded to treat it as a joke for years. So I'd almost prefer not to give these friends a chance to disappoint me.

I live in Austria and it is exactly like this here too. In the contrast to you, I only
could take those "nice jokes" my collegeaus made for nine months, before I switched to
another company. After that I never really mentioned it again, maybe to one collegue
and that was it. When someone asks me what I'm reading, when I'm reading an
Esperanto text and they concretize the question with "Looks like latin, is this latin?"
I say yes. I really hate it, when people are making fun about such things, in such a way.

Pretty much all of my friends and colleagues make jokes and found it more than a little weird when they found out about my habit.

But then, if they were doing something that looked a little weird and pointless, I'd probably make a few jokes too! It can be amusing.

Plus, every time they joke about it, in return they have to hear a little about why Esperanto isn't pointless, and actually really interesting. It's only fair! So I enjoy the chance to inject a little Esperanto into conversation.

Perhaps I just haven't encountered very unfunny or annoying jokes yet!

I do sarcasm or comment a lot of situations in Esperanto or Latin, I just love it, and at least, even if they diminish it, we found something to talk about for 5 minutes. Generally they agree with me that it is a good idea, but contemporary they say they don't want to spend energy in learning another language. Maybe it is like that because I'm pretty "new" to Esperanto therefor my enthusiasm is still big and I'm not yet into a professional context so I don't have to worry about my appearance, not that much at any rate. By now, I'm really proud to be a part of this wonderful reality.

First off, I do not believe that people learn English due to its vocabulary or grammar. The reason can be found in Jared Diamonds: Guns, Germs and Steel, i.e. people were forced to use English (like me - and I hate it!).
Secondly, I introduce Esperanto to my University Classes as a model for teaching Foreign Languages. Nobody jokes about it or laughs at me - if fact, with the exception of a handfull of foreign students, nobody here has ever heard of it. Many find it fascinating. I teach subject matter lessons (mostly geography) in Esperanto to demonstrate how to make onesself understood when the students don't understand the language of instruction. My students love it. They do their work sheets and always remark how easy it was to do well with the seat work. I have experienced mostly very positive attitudes when I talk about Esperanto. Maybe that is just my sunny attitude and my optimistic view of the world.
Anyway, I'm luv'in' it!

Obviously I respect your decision in relation to your circumstances Erinja.

But if every Esperantist kept quiet about their interest in Esperanto, it would hardly aid the general acceptance of the language. And such acceptance is probably necessary to get the language into the schools.

I can never recall at any time in the 50 years that I have been an Esperantist being ridiculed for my interest in Esperanto. But then of course I myself am perfectly normal reasonable person and not your typical Esperantist weirdo.

My mother was a beauty queen and God was an Englishman, so how could any of my views be challenged? Now where are my green star jim-jams? It's time for bed.

Forigite

I can't recall ever hearing about Esperanto until I read about it on Internet, and then I didn't decide to learn it until 4 years after that. But now, I make sure everyone I work with hears something about Esperanto at least once a week. I don't dwell on it for more than 1 or 2 minutes, unless people want to talk more about it. Sure, there are a lot of jokes, and I suspect some people consider it a waste of time, but hey, each one of us should be the master of our own time, right? The key to sharing information about anything with anyone is being able to listen when other people share information with you. I think the more you listen to other people, the more people will be willing to listen to you. However, I suspect that most people alive today, even if they hear about Esperanto more than once, will never decide to learn it when there are so many other things to attract their attention. It may take another 500 to 800 years before even 10% of the world population knows what Esperanto is or even be able to speak any of it. Nonetheless, Esperanto might just be considered one of the most important intellectual creations of the last 1,000 years by that time. Who really knows? Should we care? Does it matter if we do? No matter what anyone says, it all remains nothing but speculation. Meanwhile, I will just keeping trying to do what I can to improve the situation a little at a time.