Date Someone with a Similar Humor Style to Stay Smiling Together Longer

Roasting someone on a first date is always a gamble, but if the burn gets a laugh, it could heat up a new relationship. And if they can dish it back? Well, then it might be true love. That’s because when couples laugh together, they tend to stay together, per a new study. 

Laughter is often cited as an important aspect of romantic relationships, but given that humor is subjective, attracting someone who finds the same things funny as you might be a challenge. To see if opposites really do attract in this area, researchers interviewed nearly 350 heterosexual couples about their preferred type of humor: self-enhancing (jokes that build yourself up); self-defeating (jokes that tear yourself down); aggressive (jokes that tear other people down); and affiliative (jokes that help you connect with others). Then participants were asked to gauge their partners’ style of humor based on this criteria, and rate how funny they found themselves and their significant others. They were also surveyed about their overall relationship satisfaction. 

The results revealed that when people perceived their partner’s humor style to be similar to their own, they were more satisfied in their relationships — perhaps because they have fewer fights about what to watch on Netflix. 

Interestingly, the findings were based on how people perceived their significant other’s sense of humor, and didn’t test whether or not this matched up with reality. So it’s entirely possible that going along with your partner’s fart jokes (whether they’re funny or not) is the secret to a lasting relationship. “This aligns well with other work on personality similarity in relationships — maybe being similar doesn’t matter too much, but thinking that you’re similar does,” co-study author Mariah F. Purol, a PhD candidate at Michigan State University, told PsyPost.

So if you’re going to fake anything in your relationship, let it be laughter.