L1OR's Space!

Any negative thing you come across in life is there to be handled, learned from, healed and/ or released.
It doesn't define who you are, it's just resourceful information to help you learn.

- Ross Jeffries

*hushed David Attenborough voice*
The female glances towards the male and then averts her gaze. If she looks towards the male again within 45 seconds of the first glance, this is the clue that she has asserted an interest. However, the eye movements following the glance are important in confirming whether the female is interested or not:
- Looking downward and away: This is a sign the female is interested in the male, and would welcome their approach. Sometimes a tiny suppressed smile accompanies this downward look. All the better.
- Looking horozontally on a flat plain: This is a sign that the female is undecided if she would like the male to approach or not.
- Looking upwards and away (similar to eye-rolling): This is a sign that the female is not interested in the male and should be taken by the male as a cue to back down.

If the eye movements are positive, the female may follow this with a smile. Positive eye movements with a smile are all cues for the male to begin his approach, although usually the male will only approach on the third smile.

Source: Leil Lowndes

The LaughLab joke survey revealed that Germans were the nation most likely to rate jokes as funny, whilst Canadians gave the lowest ratings.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were going camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes woke Watson up and said: “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you see.”

Watson replied: “I see millions and millions of stars.”

Holmes said: “and what do you deduce from that?”

Watson replied: “Well, if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like earth out there. And if there are a few planets like earth out there, there might also be life.”

And Holmes said: “Watson, you idiot, it means that somebody stole our tent.”

Source: http://laughlab.co.uk/

The mystery of what, exactly, is "funny" will probably never be solve because a sense of humor is as unique as a fingerprint.

Why do we laugh? 
Psychoanalysts learn a great deal about patients by listening to their humor. And you can learn a great deal about your own psychological makeup by constantly asking yourself (and answering truthfully), Why did I laugh at this joke and not at others? Here are some possible answers to why we laugh:

• We laugh out of instinct
• We laugh for release or to feel better
  Laughter relieves tension. So we choose to watch comedies to laugh away and release some anxiety. Humour can also be a release for regressive infantile or aggressive behavior. Humor is also one way of coping with tragedy or fear. Laughing at misfortune frequently replaces negative feelings with positive feelings.
  
• We laugh out of surprise.
  The need for surprise is the one cardinal rule in comedy.
  •  We laugh at an unexpected end to a story - aka a joke. Surprise is one of the most universally accepted formulas for humour. Once the surprise factor is gone, the same story is no longer funny. Appreciation of any piece of humor decreases rapidly through repeated exposure, or when the ending is predictable.
   • We laugh at surprising wordplay eg. the wind was blowing so hard... you could spit in your own eye
  •  We laugh to cover embarrassment eg when you've just been pranked, or said/ done something stupid, or when someone says or does something that's taboo.
  • We laugh after being misdirected. A key word sets up the surprise. It gets the audience to assume they know the ending but then at the last minute you throw a curve ball. eg My wife and I have many arguments, but she only wins half of them.... My mother-in-law wins the other half.—Terry Bechtol
  • We laugh at incongruity.eg Allen Flint, the creator of Candid Camera, claimed that the talking mailbox gag—a man is mailing a letter when suddenly the mailbox starts to talk to him—was the show's top laugh-getter. The incongruity of a mailbox talking to someone is funny on its own.
  
• We laugh when we feel superior.
     eg We laugh when our football team has just scored a goal, or when we solve a puzzle or win a round on a quiz or game.
     eg We laugh at Candid Camera shows where we, the audience feel superior in being in on the prank, whilst we laugh at the poor unsuspecting victim on screen who, inferior to us, has no clue what's going on.
     eg We may laugh at other people's expense. Humor is a socially acceptable form of criticism,. Sometimes we do this to bring down the prestige of someone to make them less superior, and to make us feel more superior - to equalize eg making fun of political figures. Laughter is sometimes an attempt to vent our hostility when physical aggression is not practical.
  
• We laugh out of ambivalence
  eg laughing when we see the parent who may often like a child.
  
• We laugh to regress.

- Patricia Keith-Spiegel; Melvin Helitzer

Some more Facts about Humour

• Humor is often unfair. Jokes often take a biased point of view. There's no room in one joke for a balanced argument
• Humour works best when you can relate to it and it invokes common experiences
  

People stroke their head or hair when they are comforting themselves, because that's often how their mother comforted them when they were little.

When angry, nostrils flare to allow more air to oxygenate the body in preparation for fight or flight.

Smiling is a threat gesture for most carnivorous animals, but for primates its done together with other gestures to show submission. When you smile at someone, the animal within is saying "don't fear me - I'm submissive - I'm no threat to you".

Shaking of the head to indicate "no" may be a gesture learned in infancy as the baby turns its head from side to side when it wants to reject food when its full. Soon he learns that head shaking is disagreement or a negative attitude.

70% of people cross their arms with left arm over right because that feels most comfortable for them - the other way just feels strange.