From a report at news @ nature.com on humor in male-female relationships.
If love is blind, then maybe humour is the attention-grabber.
That’s the conclusion of two recent studies that confirm a long-standing stereotype of flirting: that women like joky men, while men like women who laugh at their jokes.
…Women generally preferred men who were funny, while men favoured a woman who thought he was funny, the team report in a second paper accepted for publication.
Bressler believes that the findings might hint at why humans have evolved a sense of humour at all.
According to one theory, proposed by psychologist Geoffrey Miller at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, women prefer funny men because their wit reveals an active and healthy brain – and a fine set of underlying genes. “It’s a very powerful and reliable way to show creativity and intelligence,” Miller says.
Too bad NewMexiKen is only half a wit (see masthead above).