Why making your date laugh doesn’t necessarily mean you’re funny

 When was the last time you laughed? Maybe it was when your dad said something embarrassing about cancel culture. Or when your boyfriend spilt coffee all over his new white T-shirt before work. Or when your colleague made a cringe joke in a meeting and you felt sorry for them.

My point is that there are many times in which women laugh at men for reasons that have nothing to do with how funny they are. I also feel compelled to make this point rather strongly today, because a new study has claimed that funny men are at a disadvantage in the dating game, at least if they’re straight.

That is the finding from research by a team at the University of Queensland, who asked 554 heterosexual volunteers to take part in a series of three-minute speed dates. The dates were then recorded and analysed, with the results claiming that humour doesn’t win you any points in the dating game.

“We found that irrespective of sex, participants who laughed more at their partner or received more laughs did not rate their partner as any more or less attractive,” said lead author Henry Wainwright. “It’s interesting that this result opposes the commonly held belief that women are more attracted to funny men and that men are more attracted to women who find them funny.”

Historically, psychologists have argued that women are attracted to funny men because of evolutionary reasons. “In the past it was thought that being attracted to funny individuals was useful because your children were more likely to inherit beneficial characteristics, like intelligence,” Wainwright explained read more...