Another Male Perspective / Guest Blogger: I Love to Read About You Loving to Laugh

My apologies dear readers for the lag time between posts. Blogging is apparently much easier to do in law school than as a lawyer. Fortunately many of my talented and funny friends are also embarking on the absurdity that is online dating. The following is written by Jesse:

Ladies - suppose, just for a second, that I am a potential significant other of yours. This is the central conceit of any online dating service, for the most part. 

Now, try to figure out what the most common bit of information given by women on OK Cupid is. The movies they love? No. Their jobs? Not close. What they're looking for in a partner? Eh.

Overwhelmingly, it is that they love to laugh. Just love it. Adore it. Often with friends and families, I suppose to assure all of us that they are not random laughing lunatics parading around their neighborhood giggling uncontrollably at litter and street signs. 

But why does anyone share this information? Is there something about the physical reaction to humor and/or tickling that's in doubt for a significant portion of the female population? Are ladies' nights out spent staring stone-faced into umbrella-stabbed drinks, talking about famine? Do you sit around watching YouTube clips of kittens falling off tables, working your laughing muscles from a mild titter into a full-throated guffaw? 

After asking numerous women with the known ability to laugh, they all coalesced around a roughly similar take on the "I love to laugh" (ILTL) line: it's what people with nothing interesting or funny to say about themselves write in order to seem interesting or funny. 

This is not meant to consign anyone with ILTL in their profile to the bitter dustbin of horrific, sour doom. You're a living human being who has almost certainly not been through anything so horrific or earth-shattering as to completely devastate your ability to tell or enjoy a joke. So instead of tossing out ILTL, tell a joke. Say something funny or self-deprecating about yourself. Even talk about the kind of funny things you like, if you can't think of an actual funny thing to say. 

But for the love of all that is sweet and merciful, do not use ILTL unless you're also going to list other basic facts of the human condition that apply to you, such as your deep enjoyment of respiration and the utter delight you take in how letters combine into words that you can then use to communicate ideas and concepts. If you're going to pull an ILTL, do it all the way.