For this post I would like you to imagine two different scenarios. Imagine this first, as you have just spent a pleasant evening, on a first date, at this fancy restaurant. The food was tantalizing to your senses and the conversation stimulating. You spoke about politics, the undying problems of the world, and to loosen things up, the recent box office smash hit.
Now imagine this second scenario, where you are once again in this same fancy restaurant, on the same first date, with the only difference being laughter. Imagine that in the first enacment you shared inciteful ideas and perspectives which could very likely be applied to solving the great enigmas of the world. Imagine that in that same first experience, the food and conversation you shared made you develop favorable feelings towards one another. And yet, still, while you imagine this, the outlying difference to the second story lingers in your mind. What is it about laughter that makes an evening, such as the one described above, go from being good to being great?
When you laugh, 15 different muscles, in you face alone, participate eliciting this favorable emotional state. The epiglottis, cartilage in the entrance of your larynx, half-closes making it difficult to breathe. This struggle for oxygen is what triggers the tear ducts to flow. The brain´s good-feeling, reward system is also involved. Dopamine, one of the brain´s chemical neurotransmitters, is released by nerve cells to be received by other nerve cells, holding a message for delectation.
Now a second question surfaces. How exactly does one experience genuine laughter? Most comedy is built using the same design: we are lead down a path of expectations, there is a build up of tension, and at the end, we are introduced with a twist that teases our initial expectations in a clever way. Humor arrives when we are able to decipher how the punch line both broke and fulfilled our expectations. Let´s try a simple example:
Knock knock..... Who´s there?.... Banana..... Banana who?
Knock knock..... Who´s there?.... Banana..... Banana who?
Knock knock..... Who´s there?.... Orange..... Orange who? Orange you happy I didn´t say banana?
Might not be the best joke in the world, but it explains our hypothesis exactly, humor arrives when we are acquainted with a twist of our initial expectations for a never-ending fruit festival. And so we arrive to our third and final question: Why is this relevant to the artistry of finding a significant other?
When you meet a woman for the first time, you may be acquainted with a side which is armed with defense mechanisms. As a natural instinct, most women feel forced to shield themselves from getting strangers to see their actual selves. Let the reasons for this be evolutionary or a mere product of past experiences, women need an actual reason to shed light towards their true personas.
Laughter, in that sense, is a way to disarm these defense mechanisms. When you make a woman laugh, you are breaking through their tough exterior and eliciting a physical reaction to your presence. The best thing about this is that you don´t really need a degree in Psychology to realize the truth behind this post. Learn this, and you will hold in your hand another important key to the series of locks the ever elusive heart of a human has.
