Of the girls who weren’t rushing to class or blatantly avoiding eye contact, 32 said they laugh more when they are interested in a guy, while 15 said they laughed the same amount and two laughed less.
I decided to experiment. Last week, my friends found ourselves on I-Walk. Just as we were about to declare this Friday night a failure and take our glammed-up selves back to the dorms, we bumped into hot foreign boys carrying several boxes of pies. We asked them what they were doing, partly because they were cute, partly because we wanted free dessert.
One of the guys launched into a story of how his employer had ordered 16 key lime pies by mistake; a mix-up that resulted in him challenging the Marie Callender’s delivery boy to a parking lot fight.
Mid-giggle, I remembered what my brother said about girls laughing. As my friends continued to laugh, I did my best impression of a Buckingham Palace guard. I noticed one boy’s eyes subtly start to dart in my direction, growing aware of my lack of reaction.
Later, he approached me and we spent the night talking. Apparently, something stood out about me, since the only time I spoke that night was when I announced that my cat is the Mork to my Mindy (a sci-fi reference from the 1980s). I can’t help but think that this flirting success is at least partially due to my brother’s advice.
I stepped back onto Library Walk, this time asking the men of UCSD whether they found girls more attractive if they laughed at their jokes. Of the guys I asked, 70 percent said that they would be more interested in a girl if she laughed at his jokes. That leaves 30 percent of guys who found that laughing at all their jokes is a turn-off. “I tell horrible jokes,” one guy admitted. “If a girl laughs at all of them, there’s something wrong with her!”
It seems that the “laugh at his every word” rule is meant to be flexible. Do your own experiments; see how guys react. It’s natural to want him to like you, but don’t sacrifice your personality. If you don’t typically laugh easily, don’t force it (if you do end up dating him, you’ll have to continue laughing at his jokes — no matter how pathetic they are).
Don’t be afraid to defy what other girls are doing. In a school with this many people, you can afford to embarrass yourself from time to time. Take that risk: You might even get some free pie.
