# Could you love or be friends with someone with no apparent sense of humor? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 20, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967 "2011-09-20T17:43:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/41 "2011-09-21T17:53:35Z")
> [@Borzo](#): > > Can some people please elaborate on why they wouldn’t be able to have a romantic relationship with someone who had no sense of humour? > > Is a sense of humour required for sexual attraction? > > Or is a sense of humour required for long-term cohabitation (ie spending lots of time together)? Both. Part of what makes spending time with my husband so enjoyable is that we both make each other laugh. As **Anaamika** says, laughing feels good (and is good for you), so my life is better with him in it. Our senses of humour smooth over rough patches, too - instead of having a fight, one of us can say something completely ridiculous and we’ll laugh instead. ---
**Author:** ![perfectparanoia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a5b964/32.png) [@perfectparanoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perfectparanoia)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/42 "2011-09-21T18:16:21Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Sex is ridiculous, at the core. It really is. Sometimes, you will do something in an attempt to be sexy and it will just come out silly. The ability to laugh at that moment and keep right on going…that’s really sexy. Also, life with someone can get really tough. If you can’t look at each other and laugh about the misery you may be going through at the moment, I don’t want it. Also, I agree with the intelligence thing. If you don’t get the jokes, you probably aren’t all that bright. Honestly, there is an intelligence test to becoming a friend of mine. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/43 "2011-09-21T19:28:54Z")
Laughter is a huge part of life for me, so no - I don’t think I could be this person’s lover and I think it would put a crimp on how close a friendship I would form with him/her. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/44 "2011-09-22T00:38:05Z")
A sense of humor in a friend or SO is nice, but really, I’d prefer someone who laughed at my jokes. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/45 "2011-09-22T00:58:28Z")
Friendship, yes - I have one friend who I would say does not have a sense of humor so I don’t even attempt to go there with him. But we are close in other ways; however it’s a limited friendship. In part because of the lack of humor thing. Or, I guess, lack of shared humor. I was just pondering this the other day…a (platonic) friend and I were reminiscing about a funny shared event and just cracked up into fits of laughter together, and then couldn’t stop laughing about it. It occured to me that that’s a closeness sort of similar to sex - sharing and “getting” a mutually hysterically funny thing and laughing until you snort and run out of breath at the same time. I don’t see how I could have an intimate relationship with someone with whom I couldn’t share that with. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/46 "2011-09-22T02:48:33Z")
I know a lot of people - especially women who are very social - who laugh _only_ at things people _do_. Wit, as an abstract quality, is beyond them. Joking or observations are a waste of their time. So is irony, I imagine. I couldn’t even carry on a conversation with someone like this. Not that I’d want to - they seem to have plenty of social men who are as real-world and as deaf to irony as they are. ---
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/47 "2011-09-22T05:08:28Z")
My mother had a wonderful sense of the absurd, and even as a small child she encouraged silliness, creative silliness. The work still had to be done, but if you could do it and be silly, so much the better. It wasn’t until I was older that I learned to appreciate Daddy’s sense of humor, too. His wit was so dry it was arid. And completely wonderful. Momma taught me to laugh at Life. As she put it, “Life’s hard enough. If you don’t learn to laugh at it, it will be even harder.” The man I chose to spend my life with (37 years so far) makes me laugh, and I make him laugh. Of course, I tell people the ONLY reason why we’ve been married so long is that murder is STILL illegal. A sense of humor is just as important as breathing. ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/48 "2011-09-22T05:38:39Z")
I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone without a sense of humour. Apart from psych patients I’ve nursed. So, no I could never be friends with a humourless person. ---
**Author:** ![Deegeea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Deegeea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deegeea)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/49 "2011-09-22T15:52:00Z")
I don’t think it’s realistically possible that such a person could exist (paragon of all virtues but humorless) but if they did, I’d definitely find them a good friend material. I already have friends who make me laugh/ who I make laugh. I don’t need more of that, I do need more friends who are kind, loyal, and good people. If I was looking for romance (which I am not as I am very happy in that aspect of life already and not interested in changing) I would consider the person, but it would greatly depend on how they handled things that most people handle with humor. If they’d already found good workarounds for the lack, it wouldn’t be a problem for me. But if it caused them to break down when things got too bad… it might make “for better or for worse” too difficult to contemplate. I think too many people already use humor to compensate for weaknesses in other areas. And also too many use it to cover cruelty (“what, you can’t take a joke?” type people) - those ones would be worse by far… ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/50 "2011-09-22T16:01:02Z")
> [@Deegeea](#): > > \ And also too many use it to cover cruelty (“what, you can’t take a joke?” type people) - those ones would be worse by far… It seems to me that the cruel people (the “what, can’t you take a joke?”) types don’t actually have a sense of humour. I think that I have a very good sense of humour, and very little of what they do makes me laugh, anyway. As for humour covering up weakness, I’m not sure what you mean by that. Could you give an example? ---
**Author:** ![Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dread_pirate_jimbo/32/3897_2.png) [@Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dread_Pirate_Jimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/51 "2011-09-22T16:27:48Z")
I’ve known a few people who fit this general description and I can’t stand to be around them. If I’m talking, it is extemely likely that I’m trying to say something funny, so people like that simply do not get me on any level. They don’t, for example, know that I’m kidding when I say I want to hit someone in the back of the head with a shovel. Actually, I’m not kidding when I say that, so maybe that’s a bad example… At any rate, if I had to be around someone like that on an ongoing basis, I’d probably wind up getting progressively and more obviously silly in an effort to either elicit a laugh from the humourless person or at least to amuse myself. After a few days, I’d be pulling my own finger and giggling every ten minutes. It could get ugly. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/52 "2011-09-22T17:21:25Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I’ve seen her berate someone who was wearing an “I’m a Marxist-Grouchist” tee - someone who works in our building but not even for our company! Okay, if you don’t mind my asking, I keep puzzling over this particular bit—I just keep trying to figure out exactly how this went down. Was she actually stopping to dress down the T-shirt wearer for being a commie? What did she _say?_ 😕 :eek: (I guess the morbid curiosity comes with my morbid sense of humor…at least I don’t have an _idiotic_ sense of humor, or I’d probably be missing some more fingers by now.) ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/53 "2011-09-22T18:20:10Z")
My wife certainly has a good sense of humour, and we do share a lot of jokes, but some things that I find funny she just doesn’t get at all, and often if we’re watching something on TV like, say, _QI_ she’ll ask “Is that really true or is he joking?” Sarcasm, especially does tend to create the odd wooshing sound. Likewise if I make a deadpan joke she quite often thinks I’m being serious (although she’s getting better). If I’m honest it does irritate me slightly and I wish we were more completely ‘on the same wavelength’, but it’s a pretty minor quibble and she has many other qualities that far far outweigh it! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967/54 "2011-09-22T18:44:46Z")
I’ve known people like this and, strangely, been accused of being like this on one occassion myself (we chatted once and got on serious topics so, apparently thought that that’s all I was interested in). It might be a little annoying, but a lot of my humor is intellectual anyway so even if she didn’t actually laugh or think any of my humor is funny, as long as she could recognize that it was clever or that it could be funny on that level, I’m okay with that. Really, there’s a lot of stuff that determines if a relationship of any sort will work, and while that part is important, I think it’s often over-emphasized. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-love-or-be-friends-with-someone-with-no-apparent-sense-of-humor/596967.md?page=2)