Don’t make me laugh. Those things are great, but they aren’t as important as choosing someone who can make you laugh.
There are plenty of things in marriage that just aren’t fun at all. The utility companies are run by boring, humorless people who expect you to spend time making sure they get paid for all the electricity and whatnot. Toilets do not clean themselves. Neither do floors or dishes. You’d love to think you’d come home from work and tumble into bed or at least just pour some wine and spend time together, but it’s more likely that one of you is changing the cat’s litter box while the other is squinting at the week-old lettuce and trying to decide whether it could still pass as edible if enough shredded cheese is tossed onto it.
And if you have children, well, that’s another story altogether. Take everything we just said times a thousand.
So what have you got, really? Laughter.
You have to be able to laugh together. And I don’t mean you just have to be able to tell a joke. You can purchase every joke book ever written and it wouldn’t be enough. You need custom humor. Fill your marriage with private in-jokes, so that regardless of what’s going on, the two of you can give each other the side-eye and burst out laughing, or at least share a smile.
People have some really strange inside jokes and rituals, and they usually think they’re the only ones who have such goofiness. But once in a while, people do share their secret silliness with others. Here are a few I’ve collected from other couples through the years:
- Pet names: This is where it all starts for most of us. Soon after you begin dating, you’ll stop calling each other Mark and Angie in private. You’ll each have your own new names. Pookie? Pumpkin? Butthead? Boo? Princess? Bunny? Whatever it is, it’s embarrassing out of context.
- Baby talk: You may claim you don’t do this, but you do. You know you do. Yes, you do. You little silly-willy, you.
- Fighting towels: I knew a couple who displayed a special set of unused, purely decorative his and hers towels. When it became clear they were having a fight, they’d each race to the bathroom to take control of the special towels, and would go off and hide them. This strategic advantage was able to be leveraged in some way that was unclear to me. When the fight was over, the towels were restored to their rightful place. Yes, it’s pretty strange. But it did help clarify that when the fight was over, it was over. If it wasn’t over, the towels weren’t there.
- Original music: This is not just for talented musicians. It is for anybody, and the worse your singing voice, the better. One man’s song for his wife went, if I remember right, something like this: “(Name) is the wife from outer space … she’s from a different place ….” Don’t we all need a silly song just about us? That dude at the office may be hot, but will he write an embarrassingly bad song about you and sing it often? No? Then stick with your possibly-less-hot-but-funnier hubby.
- As with silly songs, there are silly dances: How about the Cuttlefish Mating Dance? It is performed by skipping along in a peculiar way. For special occasions, there is the Cuttlefish Mating Dance in Elegant Form, and it involves waving the hands in a fish-like manner while skipping across the floor. Who can resist a spouse who will perform the most utterly absurd dance ever?
- Funny talk: And then there are the special pronunciations that are shared only between the two of you: These must be stupid AF and for maximum effect, should be done using a funny voice. Be careful, as you’re apt to accidentally use your special vocabulary in public if you’re not careful. (A family member forgot that the goofy way his entire family pronounced “spaghetti” was not something the waitress was going to understand. Oops.)
- Running jokes: This one, I confess, is all me. I pretend to be a terrible, demanding wife. (It might not be that much of an act, frankly.) I text my husband from bed and say things like, “I’m not sure what kind of establishment you think you’re running, but it is 8 a.m. on a Sunday and yet there is no New York Times or coffee on my bedside table. WTF, man?” He apologizes in a profuse manner and delivers the coffee and newspaper forthwith. At that point, I usually sniff and ask, “But no coffee cake?” (Don’t worry, I pamper him in plenty of other ways, and he also has a first-rate and unique pet name.)
- Communicating through pets: If you have a dog or cat, you need never have another difficult conversation with your partner again. Your pet is your surrogate. “Can you believe Sparky forgot to load the dishwasher? I wish you’d talk to him. He’s lying around the house all day, not doing crap. I thought for sure he’d at least vacuum the living room, but clearly, he was too busy napping.” Your spouse will either get the message and start doing more housework, or will join Sparky on the sofa and demand to be fed treats. (It’s a risk.)
The point is, create your own universe with its own rich culture of inside jokes, strange rituals and odd conventions. You think you don’t have any of these? Are you sure? The things you do seem normal to you, but would you do them if you were forced into close quarters with others? Hell no, you wouldn’t. We all like to appear normal. It’s only within the confines of a special relationship that you can grow your secret, cherished weirdness.
Our model is Rachel Micheletti.
