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Comment by maratd | Hacker News Reader

That's not it. Being "funny" is actually a great screening test for being "happy". Try to be genuinely funny when you're miserable. You can't. Not let's crack a joke you read on the internet funny, but say something that's actually funny and in good humor when something isn't going right. That's genuine humor and that's what women are looking for. It's impossible to do it when you're miserable. Women are just screening for happy, successful men.

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Anecdata and all, but I've dealt with depression since my teenage years, yet I was a successful improv actor in high school and often have friends telling me they think I'm funny. And in fact many comedians avow to dealing with depression in some way.

So I'm not too sure about the validity of your rationalization.

I don't know if that's true. Comedians are notoriously unhappy and it's fairly well known that suffering can lead to comedy and the class clown is hiding their inner pain. cf: Catch-22, interviews with comedians.

You and a few others made the same comment. Comedians are professionals who read a prepared script. All of them.

I was talking about genuine, spontaneous humor. Not in a setting where you're acting and where others know you're acting. Not when there's an audience. Spontaneously funny about bad things happening in real-time, in real-life, in a personal setting.

Even really good unhappy comedians would have a hard time with that one.

> Comedians are professionals who read a prepared script. All of them.

Wow you sure know a lot of things. Can I subscribe to your newsletter?

I think you'll find that's not exactly true. Many comedians are excellent at improv, that also makes them really good at keeping up the act in front of everyone around them.

Improv is a well known and legitimate form of comedy. I don't think John Belushi was particularly happy or grounded.

"And Here's the Kicker" by Mike Sacks is a collection of interviews of top comics, from standup to sitcom writing. There was definitely a lot of misery in there. There's the Simpsons writer who graduated from Harvard and still pined over girls who ignored him in high school. Or the creator of the Onion who flat out said, "I'm miserable!" and talked about how humor is connected to pain. In fact Sacks noted to one comedian how unusual it seemed that he didn't have any baggage, and that guy mentioned getting lunch with other comedians is terrible because it's like they all have Asperger syndrome.

Might just be a case of more intelligence => more depression?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Comedians_who_committ...

So, to put it in broader terms, they're looking for resilience?

Conversely, I think a lot of men are looking for the same thing too, we all know that not every day is "butterflies and rainbows," so its nice to have that person who is even-keeled in spite of the pressures of work, the screaming babies, etc.

Friends of Robin Williams may disagree with you

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