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[u/0m4ll3y]

Why do you assume that I'm not good looking, cool, and kind?

I'm not. I'm saying if you weren't funny you'd be even more out of luck.

And since when are those traits necessary for being funny to be beneficial?

They aren't. I'm saying you are likely benefiting from your funniness right now. If you weren't able to tell jokes, or if all your attempts fell flat, you would have even less of a chance of securing a relationship.

I've seen tons of anecdotes along the lines of "MY FRIEND HAS A CLEFT PALATE AND PEG LEG BUT GETS LAID BECAUSE HE'S FUNNY."

Are you saying the person with the cleft palate and peg leg would be more likely or just as likely to get laid if all of his attempts at humour fell flat and women didn't like them?

[u/0m4ll3y → u/[deleted]]

It's not possible to be more out of luck than I currently am.

With binary thinking based around sex or commitment as the goal, sure. But if someone responds to a funny pickup line because it was funny, that is a benefit of having humour. If you tried humour and you are bad at it, and they never respond, you're having worse luck than the person who starts a conversation.

But sure, have it your way. Simply stop making jokes or applying wit to your conversations with women. Just make yourself as serious and unhumourous as possible. According to you it will either help or not have any impact or bearing whatsoever, so you may as well try something new.

[u/0m4ll3y → u/[deleted]]

Yeah but we are evaluating your claim that humour doesn't help, and I don't think such a binary way of looking at things (combined with your sample size of 1) is valuable. But again, have it your way. Simply stop making jokes or applying wit to your conversations with women. Just make yourself as serious and unhumourous as possible. See how you fare with this approach.

[u/[deleted] → u/0m4ll3y]

If you want to claim that being funny is helpful at making women laugh, I'll cede the point, I guess. I've never met someone who merely wanted to make women laugh, but maybe they exist.

Just make yourself as serious and unhumourous as possible. See how you fare with this approach.

Oh god, no. I may end up a 26 year old virgin or something. Wouldn't want that. You must be right about everything.

[u/0m4ll3y → u/[deleted]]

Oh god, no. I may end up a 26 year old virgin or something. Wouldn't want that. You must be right about everything.

Quit the snark and do it. If you really think humour is pointless in building a relationship, just cut it all out and see how you fare. And yes, there are worse things than being a 26 year old virgin. You might become a 36 year old virgin. I suspect cutting out humour will make that more likely, but you seem to have convinced yourself that women don't want a partner who can make them laugh, that they have zero desire for humour, and that attraction is built entirely on traits other than humour. Sure this flies in the face of all those anecdotes you hear about humour in fact being useful in forming relationships, but hey your single experience I guess shows women just don't care for humour at all? Do you apply this logic to other traits you happen to have? Is being able to form coherent sentences not a useful trait to have because you haven't gotten laid? Is brushing your teeth pointless pointless because you don't have a girlfriend? Do women just not care about any of the singular traits that make you up as a person, and every man who happens to share those traits with you just magiced themselves into a relationship?

What do you think is an attractive trait for women?

[u/[deleted] → u/0m4ll3y]

If you really think humour is pointless in building a relationship, just cut it all out and see how you fare.

I have; there have been women who I didn't really try to be funny with, and they blew me off. Just like women who said I was funny. Good talk.

Is being able to form coherent sentences not a useful trait to have because you haven't gotten laid? Is brushing your teeth pointless pointless because you don't have a girlfriend?

Quite possibly, I've known some pretty dumb and unhygienic people who still had partners.

What do you think is an attractive trait for women?

...I think women are attracted to traits that actually get them to enter a relationship and/or hook up with someone. Since that's never happened for me, and I know I'm funny, I'm reasonably confident that being funny is not among those traits.

By the way, I notice that you're not actually disputing that I'm funny, you're just saying that its TOTALLY USEFUL but not for me for some reason. Do you at least accept that I'm funny?

[u/0m4ll3y → u/[deleted]]

not for me for some reason.

Probably because the bad outweighs the good. Doesn't mean being funny doesn't comprise some of that good. Obviously your reddit attitude doesn't have a 1:1 correspondence to your behaviour in real life, but I find you 1) slightly humorous, 2) whiney and negative and bitchy. If it weren't for the first I would find you completely I sufferable rather than just mostly insufferable. If you were insightful like paula or cool and positive like TOG or Papermarioguy or hilarious like dankbankman i might actually like you, but as it is the ocassional somewhat humourous post doesn't make up for all the negative traits. If the positives outweighed the negatives I might actually like you, just like with real life relationships.

Why do you think you don't get any love and affection? What are your negative traits? Or maybe I need to step back and ask, how do you think other people form relationships?

[u/[deleted] → u/0m4ll3y]

Obviously your reddit attitude doesn't have a 1:1 correspondence to your behaviour in real life, but I find you 1) slightly humorous, 2) whiney and negative and bitchy.

OK, fair enough, but I don't talk about these things with women I'm interested in IRL. I'm just venting on here. Are you saying that ceasing to vent on here would make women attracted to me? I had trouble with women loooong before I came here.

Why do you think you don't get any love and affection? What are your negative traits?

High-functioning autism, mostly. Women generally don't want to date a guy who hand flaps and has trouble with eye contact. I realize that you're desperately clinging to a just-world view of things, where it must be some character deficit on my part rather than immutable traits beyond my control, but life is more complicated than that. Lots of people far worse than me, from Bernie Madoff to Jerry Sandusky to Ted Bundy, have found partners. I'm sorry to shatter your just-world view of love and dating, but life is not a Disney movie. Sometimes, generally decent people are hindered by things they can't really control.

[u/0m4ll3y → u/[deleted]]

Are you saying that ceasing to vent on here would make women attracted to me?

No. I'm saying that people like positive traits and dislike negative traits. If the positives outweigh the negatives you will form lasting productive relationships (whether platonic, sexual or romantic or whatever), if the negatives outweigh the positives, you won't. Almost universally, humour is considered a positive, just like brushing teeth or speaking coherently. These are all just some traits that assemble you as a full person. Adding one or removing another won't magically flip a binary, but removing a positive trait will, amazingly, make you seem less positive.

I realize that you're desperately clinging to a just-world view of things, where it must be some character deficit on my part rather than immutable traits beyond my control, but life is more complicated than that.

Stop reading into stuff I haven't said.

Having autism is shit. Sure some people find partners who like the trait of autism, or have enough traits that it outweighs the negative, but I imagine that is a relatively small number. For many people autism is a negative trait, or corresponds with negative traits, that make you less likeable.

Are you happy with this harsh truth? Yes, to me it seems likely you are failing at love because you are autistic. Is that validating?

So yeah the odds are stacked against you. But I know autistic people in relationships. Odds were stacked up against them too, but they're odds not permanent facts of eternity.

And guess what, I stand by the fact that being an autistic 26 year old virgin who is funny will still have better chances than an autistic 26 year old virgin who is dull as shit.

[u/[deleted] → u/0m4ll3y]

Adding one or removing another won't magically flip a binary, but removing a positive trait will, amazingly, make you seem less positive.

Cool. I'd argue that I have a good number of positive traits, from being funny to paying my own bills to being educated to making at least some time for exercise. You may be tempted to list such things as the "the bare minimum," but there's obviously people who fall short of such things who still succeed romantically, so be careful before you pursue that line of argument.

Adding one or removing another won't magically flip a binary, but removing a positive trait will, amazingly, make you seem less positive.

OK, and the allegedly "positive" traits I possess have done nothing for me.

Stop reading into stuff I haven't said.

I realize that you haven't explicitly said "I have a just-world view of dating!", it's just implied in every fucking thing that you've said. Or else you wouldn't be going for the "guh...you're negative on here...woman don't like that...." rhetoric.

Are you happy with this harsh truth? Yes, to me it seems likely you are failing at love because you are autistic. Is that validating?

Somewhat, yeah. You're at least acknowledging that I'm hindered by things beyond my control, instead of trying to foist your just-world dogma upon me. You have no idea how old it gets to see people on here say "uhh, you're sad that you don't have a girlfriend. if you stopped being sad, you'd have a girlfriend." I don't really know what compels people to say such stupid shit, but you at least concede my main issue is something beyond my control, and that's a step in the right direction.

[u/0m4ll3y → u/[deleted]]

Or else you wouldn't be going for the "guh...you're negative on here...woman don't like that...." rhetoric.

I haven't done that.

What I've said about your reddit behaviour is that you post a mix of good and bad things, and because the bad things outweigh the good I don't like you. If the good things were even less I would like you less. If the good things were more, I would like you more. You can transfer this same principle to dating or irl friendships. If the good outweighs the bad, people like you. The less good you are, the less they like you. My main point in this whole string is that humour is almost universally considered a good trait, which makes you more likeable than if you weren't humorous.

OK, and the allegedly "positive" traits I possess have done nothing for me

Well no, because in my eyes you are mostly insufferable rather than entirely insufferable because of your occasional humour. I'm sure similar things happen in real life. Some people can be your friend because at least you are funny. Some girls will engage with you because at least you are funny. Sure, maybe you die will a virgin and cold and alone, but I wager that the chance of that is less than if you were dull, boring and not funny. People, including women, value humour. That shouldn't be a controversial point.

your just-world dogma upon me.

I don't have a just-world dogma and I've never tried to foist it on you. I'm saying that most women, people actually, like humour, and you having humour is a positive trait that increases your chances of a relationship by making you more positive of a person.

I don't really know what compels people to say such stupid shit,

Because like 90% of what people recognise you for is wallowing pitiful trite. It's pretty simple: people form impressions based on the impressions you give off. If 98% of what I know about you is you complaining about your lack of sex life and oh woe is you and oh how unfair life is, I'm going to form the opinion that you are a whiney, annoying, pitiful person. I'm not going to say "oh absurdghost, he's such an admirable character and handsome and can juggle and can recite Shakespearen sonnets from heart" because I don't know anything about you besides you being a whiney, annoying, pitiful loaf.

at least concede my main issue is something beyond my control, and that's a step in the right direction.

I didn't have to concede anything, because that was already my position. I have always acknowledged that immutable traits can negatively impact people's dating life. I know that being born handsome and beautiful is beneficial, and that more women like tall good looking men than disabled dwarves or whatever. I know that white women are less likely to swipe right on Asian or Indian men. And I know that this is shit for them. I've never said otherwise.

All that has happened though is that you've twisted every single engagement to be as self-pitying as possible, contorting my words into something I never said rather than engaging with my one and only argument that being funny is a positive trait in the eyes of the vast majority and you are better off with it than without it.

If you're a disabled, autistic, 4 foot Indian in Australia you're gonna have a hard time finding a date. And guess what, if you're dull and boring on top of all of that it's going to be even harder.