118 Why Humor Is Important For The Human Mating Ritual

The man making the woman laugh is a critical part of the human mating ritual. This episode breaks down why along with some principles that allow her to laugh more — No promises that it will make you actually funny.

Transcript

The Ruando podcast is an exploration of the unconscious and the game of life.

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So I was speaking with one of my clients the other day about flirting with women and somehow we got to the topic of why humor is a part of the human mating ritual.

Specifically why it's critical for the man to make the woman to laugh.

Like that's part of the package deal or the progression of steps between a man and woman meeting and them copulating,

Right?

And I remember a long time ago when I was working with different dating coaches trying to learn how to flirt and learn how to be social and stuff like that.

All those dating coaches,

Every one of those eggheads had like their own,

Would mention humor as part of their like 10 part system or whatever their system was for attraction.

And a lot of these guys would say,

Oh you gotta employ humor,

You gotta do humor.

They'd all say it was critical.

Like it would say like you have to like enact humor like it was a Yu-Gi-Oh card that you played and I would get that.

But I,

You know,

Being the nerd that I am,

One,

I needed to understand why and no one really really understand why and two,

No one would really be able to explain how.

How do you be funny?

I was like,

Okay,

I get it,

I need to be funny but like how do I do this?

It was very hard for an analytical nerdy kid like me.

So in this video I'm going to take a bit of a risk.

I'm going to do the thing they always say you should never do.

I'm going to try to dissect humor.

So it's not just humor,

It's specifically laughter is a part of the human manning ritual and specifically the man making the woman laugh in a male-female dynamic.

Now I just want to be clear,

I'm not saying that women can't be funny or that women aren't funny.

There's plenty of super funny women,

Super funny female comedians that I'm a fan of.

Plenty of things women can do,

There's plenty of women who can kick my ass,

There's plenty of women who can do great engineering stuff.

I'm not saying that,

Right?

What I'm saying is that when a woman is funny,

It's great,

It's nice but it's not critical for human attraction,

For male-female attraction the way it's critical for the woman to laugh at what the man says or does.

And before we go into the analytical stuff,

Most of us,

Even young boys or young children who are maybe not thinking about any of this stuff,

Not even thinking obviously in a sexual way,

Even for a little boy,

There's something primarily satisfying about making a girl laugh.

Something primarily satisfying specifically about making a girl that you liked laugh.

It's a little bit different than making someone random laugh or for a girl to make the class laugh.

That's all great and nice,

It's nice to get validation but there's something primal that most of us recognize of like when you make a pretty girl laugh or a woman laugh that you're interested in or that you like or you think highly of,

It feels particularly good like you're doing something I would say like archetypally correct or like biologically correct like it's one step in the right direction for our genes procreative future.

And the reason for this is that laughter is in a sense a rehearsal of polarity and what I mean by this is when someone laughs,

When you laugh,

When I laugh,

If it's a real laugh,

We are temporarily going out of control.

We're temporarily going out of control in the presence or simulated presence of another person.

Obviously if you're watching a Netflix special and you're laughing,

It's just you and the screen,

There's no one actually there but you're laughing on some level,

Your primal circuits are reacting to something that someone else said,

Right?

When we laugh,

We're literally convulsing with our body,

We're literally spasming for a number of seconds in a way that feels mostly pleasurable.

So it tells us two things.

One,

On some primal level,

If you really don't want to go out of control in the presence of a certain person,

You're not going to laugh.

Even if they say the most brilliant funny thing,

Like if you imagine you're absolutely terrified about something,

Some real danger,

It doesn't matter if the funniest comedian in the world shows up and starts telling jokes,

You're not going to laugh.

On the flip side,

If somehow you're in a tense situation and someone is able to make you laugh,

You go into relaxation mode,

Right?

Something that you see a lot if you've gone to comedy clubs,

If there's a weird dynamic in the room or this happens,

I used to go to these small rinky-dink comedy clubs and sometimes there'd be only three people in the audience because it's a weird time or something.

Even if the comedian was legitimately funny,

There's something about the room or the dynamic where it just becomes uncomfortable to laugh.

Because anytime we laugh,

A power dynamic is created,

Which brings us to the second thing,

Is that to laugh,

You have to feel safe in the presence of the person in some way.

Now this power dynamic can go in two directions.

One is great for polarity,

The other one is not.

The one that's not is like obviously if you're laughing at someone,

You're not really surrendering in their presence.

You're kind of like demoting them.

Obviously if someone falls flat on their face and you laugh at them,

The power dynamic is that you're feeling superior to them.

But on the flip side,

And this is what most good comedians do,

Even self-deprecating comedians,

Which is interesting,

Is that in some way they get the audience to feel comfortable,

In a sense,

Surrendering to the person on stage.

In a regular social dynamic,

If one of your buddies can make you laugh all the time,

On some level you feel safe going out of control for a few moments to his ideas.

Now when we bring this to the sexual dynamic,

If a woman's laughing at a man's jokes,

On some primal,

Typically preconscious level,

Her unconscious or subconscious is like,

Oh,

It's cool to be out of control in his presence.

And this goes both ways.

If someone's going to laugh at something you said,

They have to temporarily be willing to surrender in your presence,

Or just for a moment see you as a superior.

And I remember I grew up in New York City,

There's a lot of subcultures,

Especially where I went to high school and middle school.

And I remember I was a super nerdy kid,

I was definitely not high status in any way.

But I would often interact with these super tough guys who were trying to be gangsters,

Or they had a thug persona,

Always tough.

And sometimes,

Just because I had this nerd humor,

Sometimes I would get these guys to laugh.

And I remember in these moments where I would get this thug kid to laugh,

It was like there was this turmoil on his face for a moment where he would get upset that I made him laugh.

And something they would often say is,

Man,

You stupid.

And he would try to be angry at me for a second,

While laughing of course.

And my interpretation of this is that he was upset that for a moment he had to be peers or he had to actually surrender.

I was making him go out of control for the few seconds that I made him laugh,

Which of course threw off the dynamic that he was somehow superior to me for that moment,

Right?

This is why humor is such a powerful weapon or a powerful tool in social dynamics.

Because you can't laugh to someone's cleverness without respecting them on some level.

You can't laugh without being willing to surrender in their presence for one moment.

And it also works the other way around.

Because like for instance in my relationship,

My woman laughs at a lot of stuff I say,

Even though my ego feels very delighted by that.

I can't take that as evidence of how objectively funny I am because I know she loves me.

She's really into me.

She thinks highly of me and we have a dynamic where she willingly goes into surrender very often in various ways.

So the fact that she laughs at most things I say doesn't really mean that I'm funny.

It means that she's already willing,

Like we're so well rehearsed of her surrendering,

That everything that I say that's mildly funny,

She finds very funny.

And I even tease her about it,

Right?

I tease myself about it sometimes.

It's not that I'm even that funny,

It's like she's so in love with me that my stupid jokes are perceived as funny.

My stupid jokes very easily put her into this out of control state where she's able to laugh.

Because again the principle here is that to laugh at someone's jokes,

You have to go into surrender which is a thing that most women want to do on some primal level.

As I say in all of my episodes,

I went deep into this in the how to get a woman into her feminine episode,

All of sexual dynamics come down to procreation of course and everything a woman does,

Whether she's testing you,

Whether she's laughing,

Whether she's not laughing at your good joke because maybe she's for whatever reason really doesn't feel safe or really doesn't trust you or really is unwilling to surrender in your presence so even your brilliant one liner just won't get her to laugh.

These are indicators,

Right?

Because everything a woman does on a preconscious sexual level is screening to see if she can be pregnant with your child.

If she's willing to laugh,

She's willing to go out of control,

It feels good to go out of control in your presence which is what laughter does.

It's a small signal,

A very small rehearsal,

Maybe a 1% rehearsal of what it might be like if she's pregnant with your child and has to rely on you because obviously in the wilds a pregnant woman is pretty helpless,

She needs a strong man who she's willing to surrender in the presence of.

Humor is a rehearsal,

Laughter specifically is a rehearsal of that.

So now I'm going to do the riskiest thing in this episode,

I'm actually going to do my best to give you some principles,

Principles to help you have polarizing laughter in your dynamics in your interactions with women.

Actually one thing I want to say is when I was studying dating from more superficial guys a lot of these guys would try to come up with explanations of how to be funny that I never found to be useful or something that a lot of dating coaches used to suggest in the early 90s were to read these improv books which are great actually.

Improv is one of the best things I've ever done for my mental health.

Improv comedy taught me to think quickly,

More than be funny,

It taught me to trust the thoughts that are in my head and just speak in real time.

Forever grateful for that.

A lot of dating coaches would recommend this book called Comedy Writing Secrets by Helitzer and I don't know if that ever really helped.

All I want to say is you don't want to think too much and certainly one of the things I really dislike about the pickup subculture and how it's influenced more mainstream culture is that it's had this whole generation of guys recycling each other's jokes and recycling each other's stories in a way that's super inauthentic and is super unreal.

Anyway I'm not going to rant further on that.

But I'm going to give you three principles that I think will help you be funny in a flirtatious way.

The first principle and it's actually something I suggest with all flirting situations which is to all interactions with women even in the bedroom is to pay attention to detail.

The more you pay attention to a woman,

To a person,

To a thing,

To an activity,

The more you pay attention the more feedback you'll get that will tell you what to do.

This is true for escalation,

It's true for creative projects,

I think it's just a life principle that's true.

But specifically with this when you pay attention to a woman's idiosyncrasies,

The things that make her unique,

Right,

You'll find these things that become raw material for things that can become simple jokes or simple teasings or something that could be turned into a cute moment of laughter.

This is very different than memorizing jokes or just copying things that you've heard on sitcoms although I do think most people develop their sense of humor by consuming funny media.

So if you're really,

Yeah I mean watching comedy can't hurt,

Actually watching comedy is probably the best thing you can do to just like practice that funny muscle.

But in the moment,

Paying attention to detail.

And the most common way I probably make my woman laugh is when I'm mimicking her or teasing her on some idiosyncrasy and she has many,

Or I notice many because I pay a lot of attention to her.

And even the other day I was kind of teasing her on how she always laughs and me just copying what she says,

Like she'll say something,

I'll mimic it and she giggles.

And I made fun of her for that even,

Right,

I met a level of mimicry,

Met a level of paying attention and I was,

Oh yeah I was just like,

You know I'm just saying what you're saying and you always laugh.

And she said something which was very wise which is,

She said I don't know but it makes me really feel seen by you.

And that's what it is,

That's the principle,

It's like for me to tease her on these little things to make,

For me to tease her on the way she says something or her facial expression or her inflection or this pattern that she has,

I have to pay a lot of attention to her,

Right?

If I didn't pay a lot of attention to her I wouldn't have,

I wouldn't know what to say,

I wouldn't have this detail to pay attention to.

I mean this is,

Again,

The more you pay attention to something the more you have.

This is true for writing,

Right?

If you want to be a good writer you've got to pay attention to every scene,

Right?

These little details are what make things unique and interesting and low entropy.

It's a whole other thing.

We have this side of this and this is something that I often failed at when I was a more insecure person.

The second principle is that after paying attention to things you've got to make sure you're not taking things too seriously.

There's always a lighthearted way to present something.

Very often it's simply paying attention to a detail and then bringing it up in a way that is sub-communicating,

Hey everything's okay,

Right?

When I was worse at this,

You know,

Being an introvert I've always paid attention to details a lot because I'd often be not speaking and observing,

Still do this.

But in the past I would say I was on a date and I was a little nervous,

I might notice something she does and I would say it but it wouldn't come off in a funny way.

It may come out in an interesting way but I wasn't saying it in a lighthearted way.

When you take things too seriously you're typically demonstrating insecurity.

The reason why a funny guy is attractive or humor in general or humor's view on life is attractive is that in order for you to view the world humorously you have to demonstrate a lot of security.

Like if you look at some of the heroes,

Some of the super alpha heroes of the movies,

Indiana Jones,

James Bond,

Something more recent,

Let's say Deadpool,

Those characters who make tons of jokes in the heat of the moment,

There's something very attractive about that even watching it on the screen.

It demonstrates that even in the heat of battle,

Even when a boulder's chasing him or someone's shooting at him,

He has the security to crack jokes.

That demonstrates that you really are a fearless person,

That you really are a dominant person whom other people can surrender in the presence of because you're going to create such a safe reality.

That's why it's so important to take things not seriously.

Because again remember every time a woman laughs at something you say it's kind of a renewal or rehearsal of polarity.

If you're already in a sexually polarized dynamic it's kind of a renewal.

Like I know,

I don't think about this obviously too much,

But like as long as I'm making my girlfriend laugh we are maintaining our sexually polarized dynamic.

Even if everything else goes to shit,

If I'm making her laugh we're maintaining that dynamic.

On the flip side,

If I say something genuinely funny and she doesn't laugh,

I know oh shit,

Something's wrong,

Right?

There's something that needs to be spoken about,

There's something messed up or dynamic that she's no longer willing to laugh at what I'm saying.

It actually doesn't have that much to do on whether or not I'm being legitimately funny.

A woman's laughter is an honest signal,

It's a signal that cannot be faked that she is willing to surrender in my presence.

That's why it's so important.

So just for an example of this which ties us into the third principle,

And I mentioned the specific thing in how to get a woman into a feminine episode.

I often will call things out,

Especially if she's testing me,

I'll call things out but I'll try to put a lighthearted spin on it.

And the example I gave in that episode was if my woman's given me some sort of power dynamics test,

Like she's telling me what to do,

Which she doesn't do very often,

She asked me after that episode to make it clear that she's not always doing that because it made it sound like that in that episode.

But it's like sometimes she will,

Maybe she'll do something and it feels not right to me.

I'm noticing the specific thing,

If this doesn't feel good,

When I was a younger,

Insecure person,

I might have gotten butthurt about it or maybe I would try to bring it up in a confronting way,

If I bring up this detail,

And it always came off as me being insecure because why was I complaining about this little thing.

But on the flip side,

It has to be addressed.

I can't just sweep that under the rug because on some preconscious level,

She'll be disappointed that I didn't call her out on it.

So what's the solution?

As I mentioned in that episode,

I call it out but in a funny way.

Like don't tell me what to do and then I grab her and kiss her and smack her on the butt,

Right?

I'm still calling it out,

But I'm calling it out in a very lighthearted,

Unserious way,

Which demonstrates,

Renews the polarity,

It gives her an opportunity to laugh,

It makes me feel good that I'm not hiding my truth,

I'm calling out something that needs to be called out,

But I'm reasserting the reality that everything is okay.

I'm okay,

You're okay,

We're okay,

Reality's okay,

No one has to feel tense or we basically can all let our guard down and laugh.

That's why it's so important because if you want to get really nerdy for a second,

The parasympathetic nervous system,

Which is the feed and breed nervous system activates when things are chill.

The sympathetic nervous system activates when things are,

When there's a dangerous situation,

That's the fight or flight response.

For feed and breed to happen,

You really need to feel like you're not in danger,

Right?

No woman can easily go into orgasm or feel easily aroused,

Or even men,

You know,

If you have a psychogenic issue or if you ever have trouble getting it up or you're just not feeling your mojo,

It's typically because on some primal level you're not feeling safe and secure,

So the sexual part of your,

The reproductive system is like,

Well,

We don't need to do this right now.

Laughter is a sign that everything's okay.

Laughter and surrender are covariance.

Laughter can promote surrender,

Surrender can make laughter easier,

It's this positive feedback loop if you're making your woman laugh.

Which brings us to our final principle,

Which is the type of humor we're going for here has to be transgressive.

On some level it could be a little transgressive,

But your humor needs to raise tension.

I mean,

This is,

You know,

If you want to analyze humor,

All humor has to raise tension and then the laughter is what releases it.

I'm not going to try to explain that,

There's other books that do that,

But this is the principle that matters in the how-to.

One of the best examples of transgressive flirtation,

It's not really funny,

Actually this is not a funny example at all,

But I think in the movie Eyes Wide Shut with Nicole Kindo in,

There's a scene where she's at a party and some guy like takes her drink,

He doesn't like take it like in a snatching way,

Like he makes eye contact,

Takes her drink and she's like,

Wow,

I can't believe you're doing that,

She's obviously invading her space,

Takes her drink and I forget what the dialogue was,

I think she said something like that's my drink and he's like,

I know,

Or maybe there was no dialogue,

I don't remember,

It's been a long time and he just like drinks the glass in front of her while looking at her.

Like he totally,

On some small level,

Violated her space,

But in a way that he's remaining in connection,

It just raises the heat and there's something super flirtatious about that and that's like,

I'm bringing up this example,

Even though it's not laughter at all,

That this is kind of the feeling that high polarity humor has to convey,

Like there has to be some like slight penetration of her space,

Which means doing something or saying something that could be rejected if she really didn't want to surrender,

Right?

Obviously if you're on a first date,

It's going to be very different than what you might do with your wife of 10 years,

Right?

Obviously with one,

Trust has not been established,

Whereas with the other,

Hopefully a lot of trust has been established and you can do things with each other.

I mean basically the boundary of where the tension lies is a lot further in a long term relationship,

Hopefully,

If you guys have had a healthy polarized relationship for a while,

This kind of transgressive humor where you're calling out something that could potentially be maybe be interpreted as mean if you weren't doing it in a very lighthearted,

I'm okay,

You're okay kind of way,

Demonstrates that you aren't afraid.

It demonstrates that you are willing to take responsibility for the reality.

Playing it safe is just not ever sexy because you know,

That's not demonstrating that you are someone whom she could be pregnant with.

Anyway,

I know this was an unfunny video about humor,

About laughter,

But I did want to get down to why laughter is part of the human mating ritual and give you some practical advice on how to make women laugh or how to be a little more funny in your sexual dynamics in a way that increases polarization.

Thanks for listening.