An Open Letter to Women

Dear Women,

We have a problem. It has come to my attention that there a group of women or aliens posing as women out there that are answering magazine surveys on the female behalf. In these surveys that are run by reputable publications such as Maxim, Playboy, and Cat Fancy, these women portend that they would rather date a funny guy more than anything else. In all these many numerous statistics "sense of humor" was either the top quality or in the top 3 things that women wanted in a potential mate.

We must stop them.

You see this notion that women want a funny guy may be true, but it's not that important to women that their man be funny when they first meet him. The reason I know this is because I happen to hang out with more women than I really should. At some point in junior high I became the funny guy. The guy that could make everyone laugh, but not the guy that was taking girls out on dates. This could have been my refusal to zip up fly or the fact I got Hi-C thrown in my face at lunch time, but I would like to think it was because I was way too funny for the student population.

Sad brag.

In the past 10 years I've somehow accrued a lot of female friends due to my begging and pleading with them that they talk to me. This is an effective and useful tool in having people hang out with you. I suggest you try it if you have zero self respect and your moral compass is somewhere between Idi Amin and the cast of the Brady Bunch. I somehow have found myself in many a situation where it's me and "the girls." In one aspect this is fantastic. This makes you look like the best ladies man on the planet outside of Leon Phelps. "Yeth." On the other hand you are fodder for the monthly complaints about cramps and "why Blair would go back to Chuck" rantings. I don't mind these things as it's abundantly clear that these girls are my friends and the reason Blair crawls back to Chuck are their joint issues of dependency. Suck it, Freud.

This past week I was around two different groups of women when twice the topic of "Should I go out with him?" came up about some random man. In both cases the first question about the guy out of the other girls' mouths weren't about his sense of humor. I know! I'm shocked! (See: not shocked). The first question was "Is he cute?" While this is a very valid question this doesn't jive with whoever is answering these "love surveys" with these magazines. I was told that being funny is WAY more important than physical features, but here I am in two totally separate groups of women and both first ask about the guy's looks.

This doesn't seem to be an uncommon thing among women. In all my years of hanging out with the fairer sex I've not once heard a woman question another woman on whether her date or potential date was funny. In fact, I've never heard anything other than asking about his looks. Well, ok, I lied. One time I heard someone ask if the guy "liked to eat babies." I don't know if she was going for a quick zing or has this really weird fetish for devouring children under the age of 1, but it seemed odd that is the line of questioning she chose. If I had to ask a weird dining question about someone I didn't know I would probably go with, "Are they vegetarian?" That would seem to encompass a lot of things including that whole baby eating momma drama.

We could have stopped Jeffrey Dahmer.

The thing is that I don't begrudge women for picking a potential date by his looks. As a man how could you get upset about that? In my 97 things (added one more. Recency effect) I look for in a woman, my number 1 thing is "Attractive to me." I would be a hypocrite if I said that it's unacceptable that women think this way. 99 percent of men choose women based solely on their looks. We're awful human beings, but on the bright side we're honest? Please? The problem exists that these women that give survey answers or advice try to act as if humor trumps good looks when you first are trying to date someone. Let's not kid ourselves. Women want guys that are good looking first and foremost. If that guy happens to be funny that's just a way to describe them in the future. Someone is going to point out David Spade or some other comedian, but those people have the ultimate trump card. Money. Find me an average funny guy that drives a Toyota Corolla dating a model and I’ll take it back. Humor is a secondary trait that people find attractive. I'm sure George Clooney is the funniest mother f'er on the planet right now.

George - "So I was at Starbucks and the latte they gave me was lukewarm!"
Date- "GEORGE YOU ARE SO HILARIOUS!"
George - "then the barista said, I APOLOGIZE!"
Date- "AHAHAHAAHHA!!! O.M.G.L.O.L. How do you not have a stand up act?!?!"

As a man that tries to be funny nothing is more frustrating than one of my female friends saying they like funny guys, meeting their dates, and realizing that not only couldn't they make a tickled hyena laugh, the guy they're dating is 100 percent of the time better looking than me. I realize she’s not going out with him because she likes funny guys. She’s going out with him because he’s good looking, wears clothes that fit nicely, and possibly made a short film about “art” that he’s really serious about. If you’re reading this in any place other than NYC or LA substitute “drawings” for “short film.” Some may say this is all sour grapes and that I'm bitter. To those people I say "You're correct." To my parents I say, "Your DNA stinks."

All the average looking funny men of this world have are our colorful personalities and timely jokes that we end with "Sick burn" or "SIKE." We're the guys in your office that make you laugh after you lose that big account or make a throwaway joke about kids that eat grass. You probably have never thought of us as being attractive. We’re not the guys that you’ll see from across the bar and have to immediately talk to, but you should because we’ll make you snort. To the majority of us we know that’s the hand we’re dealt. Until plastic surgery makes enough strides that they can make every human look like 1952 James Dean or 2011 James Franco (We’re sure that’s not the same person right?) we’ll make do with our sense of humor.

All these magazines and Internet sites tell us we have a chance to get the hot girl on a date because we’re funny. Yet it doesn’t work out that way when we end up seeing that girl with someone unfunny. That’s why I demand as a female species you start telling the truth on surveys or find these liars amongst your mist. Just say that you’re looking for a good looking guy that could turn out funny. Our feelings won’t be hurt because we understand the struggle.

We'll make a joke out of it.


Sincerely,

Rahul Subramanian

Funny Average Man Society Member