I love you - change

When my friends and I have gotten together recently, a recurring conversational thread has been humor styles and the possible adverse effect they can have on beginning a relationship. Specifically, one of my female friends put forth the idea that women perceive self-deprecating humor as reflecting a lack of confidence in one’s self. Personally I believe nothing could be further from the truth – jokes of this nature are all about confidence. In the right context and when used in moderation I feel that this style of humor can be very effective and amusing. The thing is though, how I feel about the subject really doesn’t matter. After all, the point my friend was making was not how I perceive self-deprecating humor; it was how women perceive self-deprecating humor, and in a larger sense humor in general.

The question of humor is one that I have recently been banging my head against in my own life. As I mentioned in an earlier post I am experimenting with online dating. I am a bit skeptical of the whole scene and figure that my chances of meeting someone “in real life” are better, but I have heard enough success stories that I no longer distrust it entirely. Still, even though there appear to be a large number of smart, cute & outdoorsy women (Thank you Colorado, I am so glad I am no longer in Saginaw, Michigan!!!) I am not blanketing the internet with pleas for attention & dates. Instead I might occasionally find someone whose profile really amused & impressed me – someone that I could tell had a sense of humor. I’ll be honest humor is pretty key to my life, and I’ve ended more then one potential relationship when I didn’t find the girl funny or she didn’t understand my style of humor. Because of this on the rare occasion that I find someone that I am interested in writing, I will attempt to interject humor into the letter. With my boyish good looks, capacity for witty, intelligent banter and general love of the outdoors (a prerequisite for dating Colorado women it seems – and one I approve of) you would think I would be getting responses left and right! Sadly however, this is not always the case. At first I went with the logical assumption – freak electrical storms shutting down the internet at the exact moment that I hit send, causing my messages to be lost in cyberspace forever. Unfortunately Comcast refused to authenticate my theory, which in turn pointed the fault squarely in my direction. Since I have already eliminated all other possible explanations, could it be that my attempts toward humor are deterring women? I admit people don’t always know what to make of my concept of humor, especially before they get to know me. In the interest of meeting new, pretty female types do I need to remove all aspects of my personality from the initial correspondence? “My name is Mike, I like baseball, Bud Light and lap dances?” My response rate would go through the roof, but at what cost! What if she liked that guy, and all of a sudden I was locked into a life of mind numbing baseball games, watery beer and constant lap dances! It’s almost too horrific to contemplate.

So what should I do? Do I let humor continue unchecked and hope for the best? Do I dial it back to get the girl and then let my personality seep out over time? Do I have to buy one of those giant foam fingers and start supporting the team? Is it time to start considering the whole mail order bride thing? So many unanswered questions.

PS – In retrospect this might not have been the best topic of conversation as I recently shared my blog address in one of those so called “humorous” emails. I’ll let it slide though, as it makes for an excellent example in the case of Women vs. Self-Deprecating Humor. Besides I haven’t written anything in a while and I don’t want to have to think of a new topic.

PPS – Incidentally do you think the lap dance line would work? Because, um I could put that in my profile if you think it would help.