Humor Is as Connecting as Sex

—and occasionally just as dependent on timing, trust, and reading the room.

Why does laughing with someone feel so intimate?

There is a peculiar, wonderful thing that happens when two people find the same thing funny at exactly the same moment.

Sometimes nothing needs to be said.

A glance across a room is enough. We have both noticed it, the absurdity, the irony, the thing no one else seems to see, and for a moment there is a small world inhabited only by the two of us.

You see it too.

Perhaps that is part of what makes humor so connecting. We recognize something of ourselves in another person.

They notice what we notice.

They find ridiculous what we find ridiculous.

And sometimes a shared joke becomes part of the private language of a relationship.

It can last for years.

Something happened twenty years ago that was not even particularly funny at the time. But one of you says three words, the other remembers, and you're both laughing again. The joke has become more than a joke. It carries a little piece of your history together.

Humor takes a small risk.

Will you get this?

Can I say this to you?

Do we share enough history for this to be funny?

Maybe that helps explain why so many people say that a sense of humor is something they want in a partner.

We probably don't mean we're looking for someone who can tell good jokes.

Perhaps we're hoping for someone who will make life feel lighter.

There is something reassuring about being with a person who can laugh at themselves, who can find the absurdity in circumstances even when things aren't going particularly well.

It doesn't mean they won't hurt or worry or become discouraged.

It simply suggests that every difficulty may not have to fill the entire room.

The dinner is still burned.

The flight is still cancelled.

We've still made a mess of something.

But one of us sees the ridiculousness of it, and suddenly there is a little more room around whatever has happened.

Humor can make something feel lighter without making light of it.

And that distinction matters.

Sometimes someone tells us they're frightened or hurt or worried, and we make a joke. Perhaps we're trying to help.

Perhaps their distress makes us uncomfortable.

Perhaps we need the emotional temperature lowered before they do.

What feels like relief to one person can feel dismissive to another.

You aren't taking me seriously.

The same joke that connects in one relationship can injure in another.

Teasing can feel affectionate or cruel.

A subject that is fair game between two old friends may be off limits to everyone else. Something we can laugh about today may not have been funny six months ago.

Humor sometimes requires permission we never explicitly discuss.

We learn those permissions by knowing one another.

You can tease me about this. Not that. We can laugh about this together. Don't make me the joke.

And, of course, sometimes we get it wrong.

Humor asks quite a lot of us.

Timing. Trust. Reading the room.

Maybe that's part of its intimacy too. To make someone laugh, not an audience, but someone we know, requires paying attention. We learn what delights them, what embarrasses them, what wounds them, what they can laugh about in themselves and what still needs tenderness.

Humor can also become a shield. Some of us are very good at being funny when something gets too close. We can make everyone laugh and never quite reveal ourselves.

Which raises a slightly uncomfortable question:

When I make you laugh, am I trying to get closer to you,

or am I trying to keep you from getting too close to me?

But then there is the other kind.

The kind of laughter that catches two people and simply won't let go.

One laugh sets off another.

You try to speak and can't.

Your sides hurt.

Your eyes are watering.

You finally begin to recover, look at each other, and start all over again.

Or worse, it happens somewhere you're absolutely not supposed to laugh.

A meeting. A symphony. Church. The library.

Now the effort not to laugh becomes part of what is funny.

You know you must not look at the other person.

You look.

It's over.

There is only this person beside us, the shared joke, the tears running down our faces, and the wonderful inability to stop.

Perhaps that is why laughter can feel so intimate.

For a few unguarded moments, we are not performing, explaining, or protecting ourselves. We are simply there together.

I love this.

I love being here with you.

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