"HUMOR" IS A SKILL
I've had a lot of guys ask me how to be funny over the years.
And I'm not the FUNNIEST guy on Earth. But I do crack some jokes from time to time.
When we recorded the new course in Bucharest, our director, Casandra, commented on my humor over and over.
That's because I cracked a fair few jokes while we filmed...
Both to keep the course ITSELF lighter and more fun for the viewer...
And to keep the team tuned in and AWAKE on set (we shot 100 hours of footage, after all).
And in fact, these are some of the primary benefits of humor.
- Humor keeps things light
- Humor keeps things fun
- Humor keeps your audience tuned IN
And humor keeps your audience AWAKE and on its (or her) toes
In addition to these, humor allows you to plant SUGGESTIONS into someone's mind in a way it's hard for her to resist.
(that's the basis of chase framing)
What a lot of folks don't realize though is that humor is a SKILL.
You DEVELOP it... Same as anything else.
I didn't used to have the ability to crack jokes.
I LAUGHED at jokes. I enjoyed them.
But I wasn't a funny kid myself.
When I was young, I was earnest.
I'd just be truthful and straightforward and not crack jokes.
Because I didn't know how.
But one day, I decided to LEARN how.
And, that kind of changed things for me.
TIP #1: CHOOSE YOUR HUMOR
My first tip for you is to pick what sort of humor you like.
My personal style is deadpan. I will be talking seriously, and then make some really outlandish remark.
Yet remain completely serious. But use some subtle facial / hand gestures and voice tones to convey that yes, this is a joke.
The reason I LIKE this style of humor is because I view the world as... Well, sort of an absurd place.
Humor is just my outlet for pointing out the absurdity of what I notice.
For instance, let's say I notice a giant statue of some guy eating a hamburger outside a fast food restaurant. And it looks kind of creepy.
I will just point it out to a girl I'm with, make eye contact with her, make a freaked out expression, then go back to normal.
And she'll laugh, because it is GENUINELY a bizarre-looking statue.
But she'd just noticed it subconsciously before, or hadn't noticed it.
So for me, humor is often about observation.
The other way I'll use it is to make absurd observations that initially sound serious.
For instance, some guy might bring a banana with him in his lunch bag. And when he takes it out at lunch, I might point at it and say:
"Good thing you brought that. You never know when you might need a banana."
... and then stay completely serious-looking.
Because bananas have a vaguely sexual connotation, everyone will imagine that. But because I'm not laughing, they aren't sure if that's what I mean.
The bizarreness of the situation leads everyone to bust out laughing.
And then I will just talk as normal.
You don't have to use deadpan / absurdist humor, like me.
You can use sarcasm. You can use goofy humor. You can use slapstick.
Anything works, SO LONG AS you mind the Law of Least Effort...
And are COOL in how you deliver your jests.
TIP #2: LAUGHTER IS POWER
The thing I REALLY like about deadpan is people will sometimes fall into uncontrollable laughter.
Because YOU aren't laughing, they feel like they should quit laughing after you make them laugh.
But when you try to control laughter, what happens?
You just laugh HARDER.
So before you know it, this girl you're with cannot quit laughing.
And you just look at her, all serious-like. Like, "Are you REALLY still laughing?"
And then she laughs even harder.
And you give her a little half-grin that says, "I understand. I did this to you, so I understand. And it's kind of cute."
Laughter is a kind of power in this way.
You can MAKE other people react in a way they CANNOT control.
I suspect this is one of the reasons humor works so well with women.
It is you taking control of her. You DO something to her, outside of her own command.
You take possession of her mind, her body, her social presence.
Even if she knows she SHOULDN'T laugh...
At that joke, in this situation, in your presence...
If you DO THIS to her, and she cannot HELP it, you wield power over her.
This excites girls, because they WANT to be with a man who holds power over them.
The research says humor does all kinds of good things for you:
It makes you more desirable for both short and long-term relationships.
It makes inter-relationship fights end sooner and resolve more fully.
It even leads girls you sleep with and have relationships with to ORGASM more easily with you.
There's actually research on that. The better your sense of humor, the easier a time you have it making girls cum.
Fancy that, right?
Humor is power and dominance, in linguistic form.
TIP #3: TIMING IS EVERYTHING
Timing is key to humor.
If you use it too much, it loses its punch.
If you use it at the wrong time, you look un-savvy.
And humor is all about looking social savvy.
Some scientists think a major underpinning of humor is the joker's ability to show his degree of social savvy.
So getting the timing right is crucial.
A good rule of thumb on timing:
- Either build on laughs you've already created, OR
- Time your laughs for when she doesn't expect them
For example, say you crack a joke about that weird-looking guy over there and she laughs.
You can then lean in and say, "I heard he was on the market for a woman. I'll bet he has a big house to compensate for his weirdness."
If she keeps laughing, you can pile on more and say:
"Bet there's a giant Jacuzzi in his house with jets. He throws women in the Jacuzzi and hopes the jets turn them on."
The alternative is you wait until the conversation's been serious a while, then make a funny remark. Because it isn't expected, it's more fun.
Of course, be judicious. Don't crack jokes when she's telling you how her beloved gerbil died.
That's just mean.
A SIDE BENEFIT OF HUMOR
A side benefit of learning humor is that it FORCES you to learn social savvy.
A good comedian is a student of men (and women).
He studies them. As he tries and fails and succeeds at getting laughs, he learns a whole host of social nuances.
In this way, as you strive to learn how and when to use humor, you also learn superior social calibration.
So if you needed another reason to improve your humor, there it is.
