Wedding Blog - BD**2 - 167

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With no real news on the wedding planning front, I think I'll divulge one of my own highly opinionated rules for a good and long-lasting marriage (the latter does not guarantee the former, by the way). I tend to agree with a survey done several years ago, which said that a major source of attraction between potential partners is a good sense of humor. The survey, IIRC, was specifically about what women find attractive about men, but I think it works both ways.

You've got to be able to laugh with your loved one, the more frequently the better. More importantly, you need to be able to laugh AT someone without that someone taking serious umbrage. Less frequent is better here, but it implies a couple of things about the laughee. One, their ego is able to take being laughed at. And two, it usually means they have a good sense of their own absurdity in the situation and can laugh at themselves, too. Maybe that changes it into a "laugh with" rather than a "laugh at".

Laughing at the same things - finding the same things funny - is critical. My sense of humor is different than GW's in a number of ways. I was brought up on a mix of Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Dick Van Dyke, Laurel & Hardy, the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, and so on. GW's exposure was more limited, mainly the Ed Sullivan stand-up comedians (part of my comedic diet as well). She is distinctly less enthusiastic about the Stooges and brothers Marx than I am. We are sufficiently in sync, however, that the differences are tolerated, and even appreciated. It's part of what makes us us.

Being able to make your partner laugh is equally important in the grand scheme of successful marriages. I can't count how many hugs and "I love you"'s I've gotten over the years from the judicious application of a humorous comment. It doesn't have to be uproariously funny. In fact, it seldom is. Just being apropos of the situation and worthy of a chuckle is enough.

Uproariously funny helps, too. It usually shows up unannounced, but it has its places. I am more consciously funny than GW. She makes humorous comments, to be sure, but I'm the one who deflects or comments on situations with humor. But she can still crack me up. Case in point: we were watching "CBS Sunday Morning" a few weeks back, which had a piece on Bill Gates and Warren Buffett playing bridge. They're spending $1MM to teach bridge to school-age folks, middle and high school range. One student commented in the middle of play about turning a trick. BD looked at me and said, "Imagine coming home and telling your mother, 'Hey Mom, I turned twelve tricks at school today!" If I hadn't been on the bed, I would have been literally ROFL. I love that woman.