Humour - Not For Women?

You'd be perfectly entitled to think that, at the ripe old age of forty three, these bombshells wouldn't hit me anymore. It's not that I know everything, more that I feel as though I learn things that I really should have figured out when I was in my twenties. Perhaps the advent of the internet and the easy access to knowledge and information has got a lot to do with this. Or maybe it's just that I'm intellectually insecure, if that term exists.

This time I can't blame it on the boogie internet, it's more that the vague hint of a theory came to me, like a sharp and focused mist, out of thin air. For fear of being attacked, ridiculed and isolated by any of the female brand of readers I must state that this is not meant as a sexist or antagonistic post, it's a genuine inkling that I'd really like to pursue and discuss with intelligent, perhaps some not so intelligent, people.

What dawned on me the other day is a simple, obvious but barely acknowledged fact; women have a totally different approach to a sense of humour to the way us men approach it.

What do I mean?

Well, to put it a bit more bluntly, by and large, women just don't have humour like men. It's not as important to the everyday woman as it is to the man.

Here, like in the margin in an exam, is all my working out:

Us men, apart from the really serious ones like Dinidu, amble through life attempting to be funny. We crack unfunny joke after unfunny joke in our attempts to make each other laugh. Many of us look for humour and laughter in just about any situation and take great pride in our ability to be as quick witted as Michael Schumacher driving around a German joke factory. Of course, if you're a regular here, you'll know that I'm not one of these fellows.

A night out for men with other men MUST involve jokes. Jokes about farting are preferred but ones about belching, sex, women and religion are also acceptable. Women probably don't know this as their presence will usually make one of these groups of men change their behaviour, just a little bit.

If I'm with a group of blokes we're usually all battling to be funny. Of course I'm invariably up there on the podium at the end of the evening but there's always a race going on. When with women, I find that I'm often the only person attempting humour, usually unsuccessfully.

I don't claim to be a representative sample of all menkind but, in my own life I know and have known many women. Some are brilliantly intelligent, some are highly stimulating conversationalists, some are great fun and some are all of the above. There have been stupid ones, sexy ones and there have been funny ones.

But, the funny ones I can count on the fingers of one hand, a hand with two or three fingers missing at that. On the other hand, when I look at my male friends, sometimes referred to as men, the majority of them I would consider to be funny.

The dating/romance/partner, whatever you want to call it, thing is interesting too. Studies and serious articles in intellectual magazines like Hi!! tell us that the ability to make his woman laugh is possibly the most important attribute in a potential Mr Right. Certainly it's way up there in the rankings, perhaps after "looking exactly like George Clooney".

On the man's side, we tend to look for a woman we can laugh with. That's the official line. The truth is that "laugh with" means "laugh at our jokes", even the most feeble ones. We want a woman with a sense of humour, not one who can tread on our territory by coming up with jokes herself.

This may be the key to the phenomenon. Territory and manliness.

Comediennes are often funny. I can watch Jo Brand and other comediennes and merrily laugh my sides off. I can sit there and guffaw at their jokes with the best of them. But I'd be quite scared at meeting one, let alone dating one.

Taller than me? No probs, most women are anyway.

Smarter than me? See above.

Better looking than me? It's boring now but see above again.

Funnier than me? Hmmm...now that's a serious threat to my manhood.

Ladies, Gents, what do you think?

Are women just not funny?

Do men just think they're funny?

Or am I just talking total tosh?

Answers on a comment please.