Sense of humor ≠ babe magnet

Image from outsidethebeltway.com

“The worst bass player in rock’n’roll gets laid more than the best comedian.” – Jon Stewart

“Value is a prerequisite to humor.  If girls don’t laugh at your jokes it isn’t because you aren’t funny; it’s because you aren’t high-value enough.” – laidnyc

“There’s a joke here somewhere, and it’s on me.” – Bruce Springsteen

Her: “I’d love to meet a guy with a great sense of humor.”
Him: “Okay.. A priest, a rabbi, and a duck walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says..”
Her: “…. YAWN ….”

Women think guys they are attracted to are hilarious. You’ve all seen it: go to any party and you will find a woman cackling hysterically at some douche-nozzle’s douchey jokes that aren’t particularly funny. The Conventional Wisdom ™ is that women love funny guys. A guy who can make her laugh will make her feel good, so that’s what will win her heart. The various Nationally Advertised Dating Websites ® put up posts about it just about all the time, so it must be true, right? Right…?

Well, it’s kind of true, but in a bizarre Alice-Through-The-Looking-Glass, chicken-and-egg sort of weird alchemy. Not in a way that will help if you don’t already have the benefit of attraction going in your favor.

The woman cackling at the douche-nozzle at the party? She thinks his jokes are funny. She thinks he’s Bill Burr, Chris Rock, and Louis CK all wrapped up in one. Why? Because, sadly, she’s conflating cause and effect. Though she believes she’s attracted to funny guys, she’s got it backwards. She actually thinks attractive guys are funny… whether they are or not. She feels attraction to him, and everyone tells her funny guys are attractive, so..  voilá.. he’s the next Jerry Seinfeld, even if he’s telling jokes remembered from his junior-high cafeteria.

Image from betterworldbooks.com

So developing the sense of humor, the wry one-liners, the flawless comic timing won’t help you attract the woman. If she’s already attracted to you, however, she’ll attribute those qualities to you even if you’re reciting knock-knock jokes you copied onto your palm from the back pages of Reader’s Digest. (“Laughter: The Best Medicine,” my ass. What, they never heard of penicillin?!)

It’s great to be funny. The world needs more funny. It’s a great skill if you have it naturally, and great to cultivate it if you don’t. Seriously, be funny. Just don’t let yourself believe that it’s the Golden Road to Relationship Success. Don’t let the joke be on you.