This especially applies to friendship love, parent/child love, mate love, and comrade love, plus it is very likely to be constructive in a good many other types of love relationships.
Loving with laughter sometimes is especially good for helping people under stress ‘lighten their load’, panicked people ‘get a grip’, and angry people not take things so seriously. Loving with laughter can give needed relief by assisting people be, at least temporarily, distracted from physical and emotional pain, fear, anxiety, other bad feelings, and also from life’s problems and difficult situations. A good loving ‘laughter break’ often helps people approach a difficulty from a new and better angle seeing solutions they were blinded to previously.
Not only does loving with laughter help your loved one but it helps you too. Besides creating a positive, happy environment for both of you, hearty laughter releases healthy, feel good, beneficial chemicals in your body. The bio-sciences have produced many reports indicating laughter can reduce stress, promote relaxation and strengthen our immune system. So, do yourself a favor and laugh with your loved ones often.
Loving with laughter is especially helpful in romantic and mate type love development. It helps lovers reduce tension, feel more at ease, feel more connected, sometimes be more self disclosing and want to be around each other more. It is no wonder that the most common thing women say that attracted them to a lover was “He made me laugh”. A human love relationship without laughter can be too heavy, too serious and too draining.
There are a couple of things to be careful about. One is ‘put down’ humor. Putdown humor occurs when the humor depends on someone being demeaned, criticized, the butt of a joke, etc.. It may work in some friendships but it is seldom a plus in mate or romantic type love. Put down humor can grow especially toxic when the putdowns are being aimed at the one you love. Frequently the person being put down comes to feel degraded and disrespected instead of enjoyed. The trick is to not ‘make fun of’ but rather have fun with those you love. Whenever you help a loved one feel like they are being made fun of, secret or subconscious resentments tend to grow, a fight or even a breakup may ensue.
No matter how funny you may think demeaning humor, clever putdowns, critical joking, and discounting satire are they all can be quite detrimental to a love relationship. This can be true no matter who or what the target of the negative humor is. Humor that depends on any form of prejudice also may be quite destructive to a love relationship. Another thing to watch out for is too much laughing at yourself. Self-effacing humor, even though it causes laughter, may subtly teach another person to think more poorly of you.
Cruelty-based or dependent laughter of any kind promotes cruelty which may eventually be turned on everyone and anyone in a relationship network. Also to be avoided in doing healthy real love is falsely laughing at someone else’s jokes, witticism, satire, etc.. Falsely laughing practices and promotes being deceptive, giving false information about what you like or find funny, and it reinforces the increase of a behavior you don’t want to see more of.
The best love laughter probably occurs with positive surprises. An unexpected compliment, the unusual rewarding event, and the unforeseen affirming action are examples. Consider a surprise birthday party, an affirmation-filled singing message, the discovered upbeat love note, flowers for no special occasion or a puppy gift. All are likely to produce smiles and laughter in a way that also can convey and promote healthy real love. Strange and odd ways of seeing things, saying things and doing things can provide not only laughter but an intimate sharing of one’s unique special self. That is almost always good for growing a close, endearing love relationship.
Also important is being silly together. Lighthearted, shared, silly actions, words, looks, gestures, etc. all can be super constructive in many kinds of love relating. This can be doubly important in sexual love. Silly sex is one of the best types of sex according to many couples. The fun-filled, naked pillow fight, the giggle-filled secret sex in a public place, and the laughter inducing wearing of absurdly sexy attire are examples. Lovingly laughing together at sexually involved awkward moments, clumsy maneuvers, botched attempts, and fizzled finesse, along with larger sexual misadventures is often crucial.
Shared loving laughter can help you not to get stuck, stopped or in a rut concerning sex. Laughing together can make even upsetting sex-related misdeeds, indiscretions and disasters into precious, funny, shared love memories such as “Remember the time we set the pillow on fire”, “the minister arrived at our house unexpectedly and we had to scramble for our clothes”, and “how Auntie Matilda responded to the elephant’s erection”.
Loving smiles and laughter also can come from using precious, funny, little nicknames: Diddlesitlittle, Poofuddle , Sugams, and Dimpleduster to name a few I’ve heard. Using special oddball terms for the ordinary like “At their house lovers eat dinnuch at 4:30 P.M.” helps with laughter and closeness. Giving loved ones a loving wink, nudge, thumbs-up gesture, V for victory salute, etc. all done with little laughs and smiles are also precious.
Laughing while talking with sexy innuendos for example “Do you want some”, “Last night did you get some”, “Are you going to give him (or her), or both some tonight”, “Give me some right now and I’ll make sure you get some right along with mine” ad infinitum. This shared sexiness with a little fun helps many love relationships to be intimate and special. Best of all can be simple laughter itself, for no other reason than just being happy in love.
So, I want you to ask yourself, “How are you doing at loving with laughter?”
As always –grow in love! And laugh often.
Dr. J. Richard Cookerly
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Image credits: “heart faces background” by Flickr user jelene (Jelene Morris).
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