In the last blog post of this series I talked about how you can get a girl to like you by being able to share a little bit of your childhood with her. As you start getting more experience in sharing your childhood stories, you’ll inevitably find that some childhood stories are going to bring laughter to her.
While there are certain formulas for telling humourous stories and there are certain jokes that you can learn, you won’t be able to get a girl to like you for a long time if you keep ripping off material from other people. That’s like you posing to be a novelist but all you’re doing is writing the exact same words from Harry Potter or a Stephen King novel.
If you look at the different structures of the majority of jokes that your friends are telling, these jokes usually have a simple set up. They involve leading a person through a story that flows, and at the very last moment a punch line is delivered that is so off from what people expected that it makes them laugh.
Try Out Different Material to See What’s Funny
The trouble with all of this is that even the greatest comedians know that not everything they can possibly say is going to be funny. This is why they constantly try out new material in front of small audiences. Some of it stinks worse than horse crap, but others rock. It’s about trial and error. And that means you’ve got to take some chances in trying to be funny and finding out what works for you and your personality. 
There are Always Common Situations Where You Have a Chance to be Funny
What’s interesting is that we are creatures of habits. Therefore we often create specific conversational situations that repeat again and again with different people. When these similar conversational situations happen, they also present us a great opportunity to show off our humour. We may not tell the exact same joke in a given situation, but we’ll give a similar joke that’s the same conceptually.
An Example of How I was Funny to a Girl
For example one of the techniques I used to do to make girls laugh before was this, let’s use a real life case. When I worked at cafe as a barista, I watched a girl come in with a hoodie that had the Toronto FC’s (the city’s soccer team) logo on it. I asked her if she was from Toronto and she said yes. I then asked her if she was a fan of the soccer team and she told me she was. I then looked at her with some slight disappointment, and shook my head, and told her, “It could have been the start of a beautiful friendship. But I’m a Vancouver White Caps fan and therefore it makes us mortal enemies.” Of course I’m saying this in a playful tone while smiling. She then smiles and laughs.
The structure in this case is simple, find out some “self label” she’s attached to but not too attached, find something that’s opposite of that, and tell her you can’t be: lovers, friends, daters, or married. But do it while smiling and sounding playfully disappointed.
Take Improvisational Classes
Someone at a conference asked me do I naturally put in humor during my networking workshops. Until he pointed it out, I had never even considered it a part of my public speaking. But how I believe it all came along was because I took Improvisational acting classes.
If you ever go to see a professional improv show, it’s pretty rare that someone is going to do a drama scene out of thin air. There tends to be a focus on challenging people to be in the moment and flow with it. It forces you to be creative without planning and without strategy. You are bound by certain rules by certain games, but those rules are designed to push you forward into the wonderful, whimsical, humourous world of comedy. To break these rules is to break the basics of comedy.
If you ever want to get good at being funny in the moment, and you’re serious about improving your dating and conversation skills then you should definitely go and take an improv class. Especially if you find yourself to be a bit of a dry person. It will sharpen your wit since most improv does not allow for racist or bathroom humor. Improv relies on pure wit.
Go study some jokes, try some of your own, and go take an improv class. In the next article of this series, I’ll be talking about being spontaneous.
Until then, have fun telling jokes!
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