Good jokes depend on the teller's technical skill as well as commitment to the performance. A good joke elicits in its appreciative audience such a powerful response that it sometimes entails a full-body convulsion.
1. Why do guys feel such a powerful need to be funny? 2. How do so many guys who aren't funny get through life believing that they are?
1. Having someone laugh at your jokes is immensely flattering -- if your audience is laughing, they think that you are intelligent and appealing, because it's really hard to be funny without being both.
2. Without getting into all the gender-relations analysis of whose fault it is (which I haven't got any worked out thoughts on), women flatter men a great deal in romantic relationships, and in social relationships generally. If a guy isn't funny, but does have girlfriends or female friends, odds are he's heard a lot of laughing at his jokes regardless of how lame they are.
How do so many guys who aren't funny get through life believing that they are?
I take it the joke here is too obvious?
here's what i think the problem is. guys, among their (mostly male) peer groups, have a complex system of in-jokes, movie and tv show and even video game references, that aren't even necessarily that funny, but become a cultural cue for "it's time to laugh now" rather than actually being contextual or particularly situation-appropriate humor. girls who haven't been around them, obviously, find this stuff baffling. so they wish that they could find a girl who would laugh at these jokes.
i hung around with a bunch of guys last summer who were constantly making homestarrunner references. all. the. time. i probably might have found one or two of them attractive if it weren't for this. it's like, there are more than 5 funny things in the world, people. but i imagine they would have liked to hang out with girls who 'got it.'
But, then, silvana has terrible taste in men.
The solution to the above problem is to get the girls in on the jokes, obvs.
I usually object to the characterization of such references as attempts to be funny, though; I tend to see them as a means of reinforcing the groupness of the group.
I think to get to the root causes of this situation you need to start by asking why it is so many women seem inclined to cite "a good sense of humor" or "makes me laugh" as an important desiderata in a relationship partner.
7: you know, the problem might be that a lot of women don't have much of a sense of humor, but they think the reason they aren't laughing is because guy in question isn't funny, but maybe it's just because they're too busy checking themselves out in the mirror or worrying if their ass is too big.
Wait, is silvana a woman or a very bitter man?
Ok, MY, that's two votes for that's what women want. But that doesn't seem like such a hard question: it's fun to laugh, so someone that makes you laugh is good to be around. No?
People laugh as a sign of group formation and empathy. In social situations, just because people laugh does not mean what was said was funny. Most of the time people laugh at objectively unfunny comments such as "I see your point" and "Put those cigarettes away".
It also is a power thing. College professors and bosses can get people to laugh at the stupidest god damn things.
Within a relationship, humor is also a means of communication. It is a way to express potentially negative emotions and feelings in a plausibly deniable manner.
Yeah, but lots of things are fun, and lots of other things, while perhaps not fun, are good qualities in someone you'll spend a lot of time with. Why single this out?
i've often characterized myself as a straight-acting gay man trapped in a woman's body.
9 is excellent. Also this, "a lot of women don't have much of a sense of humor," doesn't ring true. My exes are a lot funnier than I am.
But joe o, I'd second Ben's 6: those don't seem to be the kinds of things people really mean by "funny."
"Objectively unfunny comment" sounds like it's imparting information and is a possible characterization, but really it's not.
But then doesn't that answer question 1? We try to be funny because we want to make people around us feel good.
In my case there's perhaps a certain discomfort with silence, and the feeling that what I say to fill it shouldn't always be serious. Connected perhaps with the fact that I don't lurk, anywhere. "Mouthy" I've been called.
Why single this out?
Because laughing=things are going well in a way that other fun things don't. I think.
There's also the question of funny as in funny offhand comments or witty observations, or as in the telling of jokes, which is much more of a performance.
To echo Wolfon, humor seems like an especially poor choice. If what I really wanted to do, after all, was laugh at funny jokes I wouldn't have spent time last night hanging out with two of my buddies -- I would have gone home and watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO on Demand. Non-humor positive personal attributes (kindness, sex appeal) are much harder to replicate with television/movies/internets and so forth.
20: yeah, an important distinction. Witty=great, telling jokes=fucking annoying.
Really Weiner, you're a talker? Huh.
re 14
The reason your exes are so funny is because you subconsiously set them up for the jokes. My wife does that too.
hmm.
as an answer to why women say they wants someone with a good sense of humor, maybe it's because a truly well-honed wit is a sign of intelligence in a way that, say, constantly pontificating on Sartre is not (as in, less annoying).
and we women like smart boys.
So if laughing = having fun & comfortable
people care about finding people who laugh at their jokes because it's a sign that person is comfortable being with them and thinks they're fun to be around.
I think you're right. I called it flattery above, which soumds more negative than I meant, but laughing at someone's jokes means that you like them: either you're genuinely amused, or you like them them enough that you'll laugh for them even though the comment wasn't amusing. (And the second type of laugh can be sincere -- intrinsically not-all-that-funny injokes are a means of confirming "we all like each other, we're laughing on our shared social cue.") If you're telling jokes to someone who isn't laughing, that's a strained social relationship.
What are you talking about, ogged? I tell great joke! For instance. I know a great one about Cleopatra, too.
Just to note, LB's point 1 in #2 is a better version of what I was trying to say.
Speaking of the philosophy of humor, I can't be the only one here familiar with Kant's bad jokes. From the Critique of Judgment:
Suppose that some one tells the following story: An Indian at an Englishman's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale opened, and all the beer turned into froth and flowing out. The repeated exclamations of the Indian showed his great astonishment. "Well, what is so wonderful in that?" asked the Englishman. "Oh, I'm not surprised myself," said the Indian, "at its getting out, but at how you ever managed to get it all in." At this we laugh, and it gives us hearty pleasure.
Who would laugh at that?
Are we coming to a consensus that humor/laughing are more valued for what they signal and represent than "in themselves"?
1. It makes women laugh. Happy women are fun to be around. Plus, I think there's a sense that being funny is easier than being physically attractive, or wealthy, or an intellectual.
2. I think it's mostly because a lot of humor is based on in-jokes, so if a guy is just hanging out with his buddies there's probably a lot he can say that cracks everyone up without working too hard. Outside of that context, he may be boring as hell (ever try to explain an in-joke?)
3. Why single out humor and not other happy-making-properties? One, in a personal ad, it's kind of purposefully vague; everything else is pretty vague, too. "Athletic"? "Romantic"? "Sense of humor"? Generally non-specific niceness. Two, I think a good sense of humor is sign of other good qualities; insight, willingness to put things in their proper perspective, indicative of an ability to relax.
And there are more such jokes. It reminds me of this joke, which I reproduce below for the amazon-impaired:
A Sikh walked into a travel agency in New Delhi, and said to an agent, "I wish to purchase an airplane ticket to the Netherlands. I must go to the Haig-you."
"Oh, you foolish Sikh. Not 'Haig-you'. YOu mean 'The Hague'."
"I am the customer and you are the clerk," replied the Sikh. "Do as I ask, and hold your tung-you."
"My, my, you really are quite illiterate," laughed the agent. "It is not 'tung-you'. It is 'tongue'."
"Just sell me the ticket, you cheeky fellow. I am not here to arg."
Well, there's the question of why women all seem to be looking for a man with a good sense of humor. I would argue that in a well-functioning social or romantic relationship, you're going to have to laugh for all of the signaling reasons we've discussed regardless of whether there's anything funny to laugh at, but the laughter is more pleasurable if what you're laughing at is actually funny. (Not saying that laughter at unfunny things is necessarily insincere or forced, just that it's less fun than laughing at actual wit.) Also, you just laugh more when you're with someone who's actually funny, so all of the signalling we discussed is more intense, and the relationship feels (and maybe is) better and stronger. (This is the most humorless discussion of humor since that joke Kant told.)
32: what about the great German viola joke? Was sind die drei Lagen auf der Bratsche? Erste Lage, Notlage, und Niederlage.
Women want someone funny because the opposite is so dire. A lot of guys try to be funny, and being with a guy who tries to be funny, and isn't (at least to you) is excrutiating.
The great classic w-lfs-n joke seems to me the 'palimpcest'. I'm still chortling.
37, but would the guy try to be funny if he didn't think the funny were such a desideratum?
The desire for a person who'll make you laugh seems to be an incident of American culture. There was an episode of This American Life (transcript), for example, that gave anecdotal evidence that laugh-making is not as highly valued in Russia:
ALEX: And [...] she just went on a rant about Americans. And she was like "Americans, Americans have no idea what it is to fall in love, and Americans, I never understand it, Why do you always say 'He makes me laugh.' Why is that so important, 'He makes me laugh'. Everyone in America I've ever met, all they say, when you ask them how their relationship is, 'They make me laugh' as if that is the greatest thing in the world." She just, you know, went off. As if I had said, many times, "I just want someone to make me laugh."
Yeah, SB, I've been resisting complicating things too much, but in Iran for example, making people laugh is more of a role--you're the clown or joker--than an activity that everyone engages in.
A priest at my parents' parish once gave quite a long homily on Marriage and Oh These Young People. Being very self-congratulatory as he recounted the experience, I might add: when a young couple asked him to officiate at their wedding, he asked her why she liked the young man, she replied, "Oh, he makes me laugh," and the priest said "You should find a comedian then, not a husband."
It was one of the ruder homilies I've heard. I'm blaming Boston.
I know some funny priests.
Were they Jesuits?
One is. (Both in Boston, as it happens.)
Do the Jesuits even count as Catholic any more?
Do the Jesuits even count as Catholic any more?
In my limited experience, actual Jesuits don't think that's a funny question.
I think that LB is right about the social signal aspect. Except for strained laughter--which is worse than silence--you have to smile to laugh, and that means you trust the person you're with. (There must be some anthropological/ evolutionary psychology (of the non-bogus sort) angle here.)
Men like this for a couple of reasons. (1.) At the most basic, crass level, they're not going to get anything, if the woman doesn't trust them. (2.) They feel good about making someone happy, because they like the person. Making a woman comfortable is a measure of one's worth as a man. Can he make her feel safe and secure? And as a worthy creature she deserves to feel that way.
But really I think that (1.) has the most explanatory power.
23 is right, and is the reason no one has made the obvious, unspoken in-joke. Ogged is one of the great straight men of all time (ATM?). He's the Jack Benny of the blogosphere.
I knew a priest with a gorgeous singing voice. I would have listened to him sing the mass over and over, if I had had the opportunity. Sadly, he disappeared soon after to complete some silly academic degree.
I don't remember whether he was funny.
Re 16
"Objectively unfunny" is editorizing, but "I see your point" and "Put those cigarettes away" are not funny comments. Some cartoonist proposed the distinction of hume, humor and humest, where hume fulfilled many of the functions of humor without actually being funny. Most of what we laugh at is hume.
Hume was funny! Probably the funniest of the great modern philosophers.
Most of what we laugh at is hume.
Yes, but...how things are said, with what intonation and angle of the eyebrows, makes a big difference, which doesn't change the general point, but makes me suspicious of particular examples.
"Objectively unfunny" is editorizing, but "I see your point" and "Put those cigarettes away" are not funny comments.
When you say "are not funny comments", you're repeating the same mistake that leads you to think that "objectively unfunny" is legitimate. The comment, qua funny, is inextricable from the context, the manner said, etc. Or: to say that the phrase "I see your point" is not funny might be true, but it's misleading; what's relevant is the total funny act in the total funny situation.
I think there's an alternate explanation to both Q1 and Q2 alluded to in #40, 41. Women don't particularly want a guy with a great sense of humor. They simply say it because they are expected to say it - every woman before them has said it - and it is more socially acceptable to want a man for his sense of humor than for his looks, wallet, enormous feet, etc. Which leads us to #2: there are a lot of men out there who have been selected for looks, wallet, enormous feet, etc., who have been told (or assume) they were selected for humor.
Re: 56, I read somewhere the tongue-in-cheek hypothesis that women don't want a funny guy; they want that hot guy at the bar with the $1200 shoes who they're actively fantasizing about to ALSO be funny.
Person: "doctor, doctor. I feel like a needle"
Doctor: "I see your point."
I think 56 is right. A social expectation for women to say they're looking for humor leads to male belief that humor is extremely important leads to female belief thaty they should laugh at unfunny jokes to avoid crushing the poor men's souls leads to a plague of unfunny jokes and fake laughs.
but we (at least some of us) really are looking for humor. i once had a crush on a professor that was, i believe, solely because he was fuckin' hilarious. he wasn't particularly attractive, a lot older than me (and i don't have a "thing" for older men or anything), and i didn't know him personally. so.
My wife married me in good part because I make her laugh, even when she hadn't known that she needed to laugh. Sometimes this requires pulling my pajama pants to my armpits and strolling around, crotch thrusting vigorously, but these are the sacrifices we make for our spouses, no?
That's some mating dance you have there.
I make her laugh, even when she hadn't known that she needed to laugh.
That cuts to the quick doesn't it?
That's not the dance. The dance involves stomping like a sumo wrestler, shaking my ass to an impromptu song of my choice (and often composition), and wild arms-in-the-air gesticulation. Farting noices have been know to make an appearance.
Ladies, I'm sorry, but there is only one of me, and I'm taken.
The explanation that men effort to be funny because it wins them mates seems to fall short to me because it lacks an explanation of the ubiquitous positive reenforcement which humor gets.Certainly there's lots to be said for humorous people in general. And humor seems to be a trait the one can work one without real devoted effort, so it's something a lot of people can achieve. If listening to viola players gave me knowledge of how to play the viola, I'd be a viola player, and woo women with my viola.
Why do some guys try to be funny when they're not? It's unlikely that someone is always unfunny. A few success here and there in a dry spell can keep you going....And there are a lot of social benefits. Being the center of attention, for instance. There is a certain respect accorded to those with sharp wits. One needn't, shouldn't perhaps, be a clown, but some funny comments here and there are perhaps necessary for climbing social hierarchies. Part of it is certainly that wit often pokes fun at others, which elevates one's own status by noticing something others may have missed.
Chopper: "Ladies, I'm sorry, but there is only one of me, and I'm taken."
Now that was funny.
62: I have done that.
Making people laugh asserts power over them. You have incapacitated them and can now go in for the kill.
I'm not laughing near text ever again. It's measured chortles for you, buster.
I went out with a German guy who had no sense of humor whatsoever. He was a sleek honey-toned young god, though. That kind of helped fill the void.
So, you went out with a German guy who looked the way Greek guys think they look?
Yeah, he turned out to be horrible, though. Humor might be an indicator of not-psychotic.
no sense of humor whatsoever
How so? I can think of a couple things this could mean.
Um, where's the Hellfire post y'all are commenting on?
First there was one, then there were two, now there are none. Talk to Labs.
Humor might be an indicator of not-psychotic.
If I could use comic references I'd mention the Joker and Riddler. But I can't. So I won't.
And, Gawd I hate being trite but I'll say it anyways Clowns are seriously creepy.
So lets restate: Non-Slapstick Humor might be an indicator of not-psychotic?
Everyone knows slapstick is dead.
How so? I can think of a couple things this could mean.
As I recall, it seemed to involved me listening to myself talk and laugh at my own anecdotes and feel very narcissistic and strange while he just nodded earnestly at me.
AC, I have got to say this: The notion of teutonic coldness and complete lack of self-irony impinging on celtic bloodness has my head a-shaking.
He was German. I can't help the fact that he was German.
Perhaps he was saying terribly amusing things in his own language that I missed.
No No.. nor can you. Not a-shaking at you, just at the thought. I have my problems with our northern cousins. Its not so much the lack of humour, as what is considered funny! brrr....
I do like German South Park. Leck mich, Leute! Ich gehe nach Hause.
You want to try Monty Python in German!
Google's translating software tells me that "Leck mich, Leute!" means "Leaking me, people!" I doubt that however, and assume it means, "Screw you guys!"
Lick me, people! "Leck mich am Arsch" (lick me on the ass) is apparently the idiomatic way to tell someone to kiss your ass in German.
Its called the "Götz Zitat" - after the character who uses the phrase in a famous play.
Which lead to this gem from a colleague:
"He quotes Götz, but I doubt if he has read him."
"Leaking me, people!"
wd, thats awesome.
How would you interpret "leak me!" if someone yelled that at you on the street?
I am sure I saw "Hogan's Heroes" dubbed in German on German satellite, which was very, very strange.
How would you interpret "leak me!" if someone yelled that at you on the street?
Dialysis, bloodletting, milking?
95: That's even witty.
97 - I think I'd be Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation":
what? What??
In honor of the day, and the current language discussion, a salute to the neighbors:
Was wollen die Franzosen?
Liberté, fraternité, Pfefferminztee.
I would take "Leaking me, people!" to mean that the person was losing blood and, from the coherence of what they're saying, probably near death.
Of the three I propose in 99, I'm most inclined to bloodletting, but really I'd think of something like tapping a tree for its sap.
Loriot, who is not French, is very funny, if not widely known outside his native land.
(And speaking of in-jokes, "Die Ente bleibt draussen!")
There is actually a complimetary phrase that the German language contains in respect of the French:
"Wie der Herrgott in Frankreich..."
A case of jealous respect, I think.
Dialysis, bloodletting, milking?
Great that dialysis is your first thought.
My first thought was really more along the lines of tree-tapping. But dialysis and leeches are actually employed upon people.
105 Although when they want to live like God in France, they tend to actually do it in Spain. Europe's a funny place, no?
I will visit Europe, and remain until I can ornament my ungrammatical English with a fringe of mispronounced French.
I am sure I saw "Hogan's Heroes" dubbed in German on German satellite, which was very, very strange.
I once saw a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode dubbed in German on Austrian television and all of a sudden Captain Picard seemed like this awful Nazi barking orders at everyone that would, do doubt, lead to massive death and suffering.
For at least another 100 years, any aggressively authoritarian German will sound like a Nazi. That's pretty cool.
CUPPING! That's what I wanted when I originally wrote "bloodletting". Though really cupping is just a method of bloodletting.