DELICATE BALANCE: Why do funny guys get swarmed with female attention, but somehow it's not quite the same for funny gals and male attention?
Image: iStockphoto
In Brief
- When seeking a mate, men desire women who laugh at their jokes, whereas women prefer men who can make them laugh.
- These complementary desires may be rooted in the evolutionary force of sexual selection, whereby one sex performs or competes for the other, choosier sex’s attention.
- Once a man and woman are in a relationship, humor roles change—it becomes important for women to use humor to relieve tense discussions.
When comedian Susan Prekel takes to the stage and spots an attractive man in the audience, her heart sinks. “By the end of my gig he’s going to find me repulsive, at least as a sexual being,” she says.
In more than a decade of performing on the New York City comedy circuit the attractive, tall brunette has been asked out only once after a show. But male comics get swarmed. “They do very well with women. I see it all the time,” Prekel says.
This article was originally published with the title The Humor Gap.
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7 Comments
Add CommentThis is an awesome article. I serve on the board of The Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor. We are most interested in research and applications of humor. http://www.aath.org/index.html Thank you for this contribution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi agree
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBoth the Bible and the skimos consider laugh an equivalent of intercourse. Some spaniard Don Juan apprentice teachers say: when you make a woman laugh, she's yours
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@jgrosay, "when you make a woman laugh, she's yours", that depends if she is laughing with you or at you...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK, someone needs to do the same study, but using male-male or female-female couples. How does humor work between two men or two women in nonsexual relationships - say, buds who do the same tailgate party each weekend? And if and how does that vary or parallel love or sexual relationships between gay men or lesbians?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy sixth grade class usually was 18 to 20+ boys and three to five girls. With odds like that you would think the girls would fort up, circle the wagons so to speak. Not so; all year long, it was a larger group against the odd person out. Most of the year there were three girls and at all times one of them was on the outs with the other two. Yeah right women "never are bitches to each other," Give me a break
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe is because the example that is giving here is about women and men performing a comic routine. I think women tend to get atracted to men who gets in a stage (comic, music, professor, etc) where men dont.
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