Sans Fig Leaf
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"A smile on my face"
15 February, 2007
In countless movies I have seen or books I have read, there's been a similar scene: two characters discussing the spouse or significant other of one of the characters:
Character 1: "I just don't understand what you see in him/her."
Character 2: "He/she makes me laugh."
When I was younger, I wondered why that was so important. Did I have to become a comedian to snag my one true love?
Laughter is a strange thing. I was reading a few years ago about this sociological study in which the investigators and their graduate students secretly observed thousands of people interacting in various public places, recording how often and under what circumstances people laughed. They were surprised to discover that only 10-20% of laughter was a response to a joke or a humorous incident. Even in those situations where one person was telling one or more others a humorous story, the person telling the story laughed far more often then the people listening.
Men, they learned, far more often tried to make the people they were with laugh than women did. Not surprising, then, that the "class clown" is almost always a guy. Some other studies have noticed the phenomenon that guys often use humor as a courting mechanism.
They also observed laughter being used to communicate such non-humorous things as: "please don't hurt me" or "I'm feeling very uncomfortable." For example, when a group of jocks at a school surrounds the nerd trying to read during recess, the nerd laughs nervously as he's answering their questions--or joins in the laughter at the jokes at his expense--because he's subconsciously trying to communicate that he's part of the same pack/clan/tribe so that they will not harm him.
They concluded from their months of observation that at least one of the purposes of laughter is a social bonding mechanism. We're more likely to laugh in the company of people we know well than with strangers. Conversely, sharing a laugh with someone can make us feel closer to them.
Does Michael make me laugh because we know each other so well, or have we come to know each other well because we can laugh together? I don't think there's a simple answer. I do know that being with Michael makes me happy. We don't have to be doing anything particularly special or romantic for me to have that warm tingly I'm-grinning-for-no-reason feeling.
Sometimes I walk into a room and he's grinning at me strangely. I ask him what's up, and he'll say something like, "Can't I just enjoy looking at you?" And I realize he's having that same feeling. I get it sometimes just listening to him working on his computer in the other room. It's enough to know he's there, and that if either of us needed something, the other would do it.
I get that silly, happy feeling spending time with all my friends--because they're wonderful people and I love them all.
Human relationships are complicated things, when looked at from the point of view of neurochemicals, stimulus and response, bonding activitives, verbal and nonverbal communications, shared communal rituals, and so on. But in a very really sense, they are all as simple as, "being with him or her or them puts a smile on my face."
And that's enough.
I never lived--Enough.
--Emily Dickinson
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