read time: 7 min
In between prominent scenes of most RomCom movies, you often see footage of random couples on a park bench or out to dinner laughing and having a grand old time together.
Of course you do, because it’s showing all “good vibes” relationship moments!
Boring, mundane moments don’t sell.
Thus, if you happen to be sitting on a park bench or out to dinner with your lovely partner but they are not making you laugh…womp, womp…does that mean something is wrong with them or your relationship?
This leads to an interesting question that can come up for someone with relationship anxiety:
“What if my partner isn’t funny enough…or at all?”
I recently received this submission from an email community member:
“Hi Sarah,
Thank you so much for being here! I read your blog almost every week! I was wondering if you could talk about not having the same type of humor. In fact, my boyfriend doesn’t really make me laugh. And it’s kind of something that I usually really want in a relationship, but he is SO MANY other things and he is the most caring and loving boyfriend on earth. It’s just really hard for me when I see couples laughing together or if another guy make me laugh, then I will be really anxious that maybe I don’t love my boyfriend or I made the wrong choice.”
Immediately, as I was reading through this submission, I noticed a few things:
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This person feels the need to defend their boyfriend to share how amazing he is (despite maybe not having the same humor). In a weird backwards way, this person is showing just how much they care about their boyfriend with how many kind and loving things they said. Essentially, they’re saying my partner is almost perfect, but not quite. More on this in a bit, but I don’t think this is such a bad thing, after all…
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There is comparison to others + grass is greener mindset happening. “When I see couples laughing together, or another guy makes me laugh” says that this person is more focused on comparing what is “going well” externally with “what is missing” in their own situation. This energy is then spent feeling bad about what others have instead of going towards cherishing and appreciating the amazing things happening within the relationship they are in. No shame intended here, it’s normal to compare and think things would be better in another situation, but it’s not quite the full story.
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There is subjective meaning being assigned to an objective event. The objective (not influenced by or based on a personal viewpoint—based on the analysis of an object of observation only) event that happens is “I don’t laugh around my boyfriend.” The subjective (based on the personal perspective or preferences of a person) meaning + stories being added on are: “my boyfriend doesn’t make me laugh,” “we don’t have the same sense of humor,” “this means something is wrong with the relationship,” and even going as far as to think “this may mean I don’t love him and I have made the wrong choice.” There is a lot of meaning-making happening to jump from “I don’t laugh around my boyfriend” to get all the way to “this may mean I don’t love him and I have made the wrong choice.” Where did you learn the beliefs or stories that led you to the conclusion that humor is the most important quality (more important, perhaps, than caring, loving, etc.) — and is that really true? Or is it a perfectionist belief that “my partner must have every single quality I could want and more.”? Again, no shame intended here, because I know that laughter is a trait that is encouraged in various ways, and yet, we have to sometimes pause and question the validity of the beliefs we have.
Aside from what I noticed in this question, a handful of other thoughts came up for me when thinking about the topic of our partner being “funny enough, or at all”:
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It’s not your partner’s job to make your life funny/fun/exciting. Period. Of course, it’s great when they can add funniness, fun, and excitement to your life. But it’s not wrong or bad to enjoy your “funny friends” or your “funny coworker” and their humor without tying it back to your relationship or partner lacking in some way. Not everything in life needs to be converted into an expectation of our partner. They are just one person. Which leads to my next point:
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We can’t write up a perfect partner checklist and expect someone to meet it’s every item. I’ve written about this before (see “perfect partner checklist” blog post on this for more), and the TLDR is this: our partners are humans. They are not a checklist of “funny,” “smart,” “always supportive,” “tall + dark + handsome,” “rich,” “goal-oriented,” “athletic,” “well-traveled,” etc. We have our own shortcomings, and they do too. It should be expected to have some areas where they “miss the mark” a little bit, especially if our “mark” we’ve been striving for was a fantasy RomCom character to begin with.
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The judgment/analysis/comparison/search for your partner being funny enough (or at all) is likely part of what’s preventing you from finding them funny. Yup, I said it! Think of it this way: is the part of ourselves that laughs, jokes, and admires someone the same part of us that is up in our mind trying judge/analyze/compare them? Nope. It’s like trying to force ourselves to be happy instead of letting a happy moment come to us and appreciating when it does. In trying to find laughter, we may be blocking it from happening. Instead, try to allow your partner to be themselves and see what parts of that you can accept and appreciate. Additionally, you likely feel more pressure to find your partner funny than you do for the other people in your life, so you may laugh more around those others because you don’t have such high expectations of them (including in other areas, not just laughter). You likely feel more pressure for your partner to meet all your needs/be perfect than a random person, so those subconscious pressures put onto your partner may be part of the challenge.
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There are some underlying “if they were funnier, then…” beliefs at play. Maybe not consciously, of course, but subconsciously, there are likely some, if not all, of these other statements involved: “If they were funnier, then I would like them more/be more attracted to them,” “If they were funnier, then other people would like them more,” “If they were funnier, they would be cooler/good enough for me,” “If they were funnier, I would have a funnier partner which makes me more likable.” None of these things are necessarily “wrong” or “bad” to think - and yet - this ties back to the three earlier points I’ve made: it’s not our partner’s job to make our life better, we can’t expect perfection in others (or ourselves), and the analysis of our partner is likely making this all-the-more complicated. When we recognize some of these subconscious beliefs are within us, we can ask if they’re fair to expect, or if they tie into our most important beliefs or values, or are just “social norms” that we’ve never stopped to question. We can ask ourselves questions like “is it true that I need my partner to always make me laugh to enjoy my life?” for example, and see where that question leads.
I’ll close out this blog post by saying this:
Laugher is great, and I’m not here to poo-poo anyone for desiring it.
AND, I want to stretch you slightly outside of the normal narrative of love and relationships where you hear things like “the most important thing is to have someone who makes you laugh” and ask if YOU genuinely believe that to be true, or if it’s just something you’ve picked up and kept rolling with.
If you’re in a loving, healthy relationship with someone who’s invested in you and growing with you, that’s an awesome first step.
Maybe, just maybe, you can trust that other parts of the relationship can continue to blossom, and maybe just maybe, if you can choose to look for the ways your partner IS enough, you may slowly care less about the ways they are “not enough” and realize they actually have a lot of love (and maybe even funny-ness…who knows?!) to give.
Rooting for you!
*as always, my blog posts are not geared towards anyone in an abusive relationship.
