Apparently, the most important trait women seek in a man is the ability to make them laugh—or so they say in surveys. Think about it: not kindness or intelligence or good looks or success: just a sense of humor! Women want men who make them laugh.
These same surveys say it’s different with men: they don’t want women who make them laugh--they want women who laugh at their jokes. (Why am I not surprised?)
But back to those women who prize humor above all. It makes sense in a way. Humor often rests on commonality: the same references, the same language, the same values. Humor is a shortcut to a shared culture; a man who can joke around with women sees things the same way they do and can assume an easy familiarity with them. Laughter creates an instant bond, and sharing laughter with another often enlarges and prolongs it.
A man who makes you laugh is likely to be intelligent and quick-witted, for humor signifies an agile mind, an original stance. Perhaps there are evolutionary advantages to being attracted to a man who makes you laugh.
In addition, a person who makes you laugh might well be easy-going, finding amusement in the everyday. Unless his wit is cruel, he is not domineering and full of himself. Indeed, he is likely to mock himself for a laugh. You might almost say a sense of humor implies a certain humility, which indicates a strength of character.
And the man making the joke is somewhat brave, for what makes one woman laugh might possibly insult another. Making a joke is slightly dangerous, for the woman might not get the joke or she might not realize he’s joking. Or she might think the joke’s in poor taste. Many things can go wrong, so when you do laugh together, you’ve leapt over a chasm and are laughing from relief as well as amusement.
In courtship, the humor is likely to be of the teasing variety, and teasing, with its affectionate mockery, augments intimacy. Laughter is a glorious release, all the more explosive when the situation holds a certain tension, as when we are with somebody new.
In my novel Cybill Unbound, Cybill wonders: “Why do we laugh so much with a new partner? Perhaps it’s the sudden complicity—that thrilling superiority we feel to everyone else in the world. Perhaps it’s a general lowering of restraint. When we laugh, as when we come, we are out of control.”
Ah, the joy of letting go!
The great paradox is that while humor is an erotic enticement, sometimes leading us to new, arousing partners, humor has no place in the boudoir. Wit implies an unseemly detachment from the ongoing events, and laughter is cold water on the fire. If something happens that makes one of you laugh—a sucking sound between your bodies; a dog throwing himself against the door—it will take a little while to get back in the groove.
Each wonderful on their own, laughter and eros don’t make a good mix.
It’s been decades since I dated, but I remember the reassuring feeling when a woman or girl would laugh at a joke or a humorous observation that I made. It was a promising sign.
Laughter is so often the best medicine--especially in a relationship!