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A study found this flirting strategy to be the most effective, regardless of your looks or age

The ultimate pick-up line might be a one-liner.

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A couple enjoying a glass of wine.

In the 1988 Disney classic “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” the titular character is in an unlikely relationship with his voluptuous wife Jessica. Roger is a frantic, anxious rabbit with a penchant for mischief, while Jessica is a quintessential ’40s bombshell who stands about a foot and a half taller and isn’t “bad,” just “drawn that way.”

When private investigator Eddie Valiant asked Jessica what she sees in “that guy?” she replies, “He makes me laugh.” This type of couple may seem like something we only see in the movies, but don’t underestimate the power of humor when it comes to attractiveness. A 2022 study published in Evolutionary Psychology found that being humorous is the most effective way to flirt for both men and women.

“People think that humour, or being able to make another person laugh, is most effective for men who are looking for a long-term relationship. It’s least effective for women who are looking for a one-night stand. But laughing or giggling at the other person's jokes is an effective flirtation tactic for both sexes,” says Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Psychology.

dating, flirting, how to flirt, flirting advice, romance, men, women A woman smiles at a manImage via Canva

“It is not only effective to be funny, but for women, it is very important that you show your potential partner that you think they are funny,” Rebecca Burch, a co-author from SUNY Oswego in New York, added.

For men, showing off their sense of humor was found to be the most effective way to flirt whether they were looking for a short-term or a long-term relationship. For women, being funny was the most effective tactic when looking for a long-term relationship. For people looking for a short-term fling, appearing available was the most effective tactic.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

According to the study, humor is effective regardless of one's attractiveness. “Individual differences in age, religiosity, extroversion, personal attractiveness and preferences for short-term sexual relationships had little or no effect on how effective respondents considered the various flirting tactics to be,” says study co-author Prof. Mons Bendixen.

If you see someone you like but don’t think you’re good-looking enough for them, give it a shot. You may still have a chance if you can make ’em laugh.

The most effective tactics for those looking for a long-term relationship:

For women:

1. Makes him laugh

2. Shows interest in conversations

3. Spends time with him

4. Engages in deep conversations

5. Kisses on mouth


flirting, flirting advice, how to flirt, dating, romance, men, womenA man texts a woman sitting near himImage via Canva

For men:

1. Makes her laugh

2. Spends time with her

3. Shows interest in conversations

4. Engages in deep conversations

5. Smiles

The study is proof that looks aren’t everything and shows that having a good sense of humor isn’t just about making someone laugh. A great sense of humor is evidence that someone is intelligent, wise, perceptive, confident, can see things from new perspectives and has good intuition. It also helps people quickly build bonds and share experiences, which is a great way to get close to someone in a fast and fun way.

So why wouldn’t Jessica be with Roger? The guy is hilarious.

This story originally appeared three years ago.

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Love Stories

A speeding driver accidentally hit a bicyclist. Now they're married and having a baby.

A truly bizarre and beautiful love story.

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They crashed into love, you could say.

If you think it's hard meeting people these days, maybe you're just not thinking outside of the box. Dating apps, speed dating, and blind set ups by friends are old news. If you want to make a stronger connection, maybe it's time you looked in some more unexpected places. Do you have a hot dentist? Fight through the numbness in your tongue and tell them how you feel. Ever swapped numbers with a political canvasser that came knocking on your door? At least you already know whether you agree on politics.

All kidding aside, it is tough to find love in 2025. But, as cliche as it sounds, you really do sometimes find it in the last place you'd ever expect.

A wild story out of China is proving that love can be found in the strangest of places.

A 36-year-old man named Li was in a hurry one day in late 2023. Reports say he was dealing with an emergency, which may have distracted him while driving. And then the worst happened. He struck a woman who was riding an electric bicycle, sending her hurtling to the ground injured. Li scrambled out of his car to check on the woman and apologize. Now he had two emergencies to deal with.

Her response, as she lay there in agony with what would later be determined to be a broken collar bone: "No worries."

gif of someone in a hospital bed saying "no worries"No worries!Giphy

Her kindness and forgiveness (and maybe a little bit of millennial people-pleasing) opened the door for the two to stay in touch after the accident. Li visited the woman in the hospital every day as she recovered, where they struck up a friendship. That friendship quickly turned into more. After just a few weeks, it was actually the woman—broken collarbone and all—who confessed her feelings to Li first. They had really hit it off during those visits. Li was hesitant due to their age gap and, well, the extreme weirdness of how they met, but eventually he gave it a chance, realizing it was kind of rude to turn her down for a date after hitting her with his car and putting her in the hospital.

Less than a year later, she was pregnant, and the couple just tied the knot in February of 2025, bringing their unbelievable love story full circle.

If it sounds like the plot of a movie, it kind of is. A similar premise is at the heart of the 2024 film We Live In Time with Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. Who says you can't find a Hollywood ending in real life?


The story was shared far and wide on social media where it raised a few eyebrows, and inspired more than a few jokes.

Clever Reddit users were quick to point out that Li may have taken the idea of "hitting on someone" a little too literally.

One user shared that Li's story was similar to one of her own: "This is similar to how my grandparents met. My grandfather was just in the US on vacation. on his way to go back to his country he got into a car accident. He stayed to make sure the woman in the other car was ok. The rest is history."

I think it gives people hope to hear these bizarre and unexpected love stories. The world has been different since COVID. In person connections with other people are more rare. And people are burnt out on dating apps, with usage dipping drastically over the last year or two. I can imagine it feels impossible to find someone if you've tried all the usual avenues and come up empty. So maybe you don't want to go out intentionally running over attractive pedestrians, but if we can take anything away from Li's story, it's that staying open-minded and optimistic can actually pay off sometimes when it comes to love. Congrats to the happy couple! Though, for safety reasons, it's probably best if Li lets his wife drive from now on.

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Love Stories

Couple with 6-inch height difference proves 'short king/tall queen' relationships are beautiful

Height is just a number.

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TikTok loves to celebrate relationships that fit our culturally accepted norms. 'Big manly guy plus dainty girl' equals algorithm gold! Every week there's a new challenge spawning hundreds of videos: Can you lift your girlfriend with one arm? Can you pick her up and sit her on your shoulder? Can you throw her over your shoulder like a military soldier?

Refreshingly, one couple is breaking the mold. Meet Ellie and Lucas. Lucas Byrd is currently the number one ranked collegiate wrestler in his weight class — not too shabby. Ellie Holzman is a former D-1 volleyball and softball player. But they're social media-famous as a couple for reasons that have nothing to do with their athletic accomplishments.

Yes, this TikTok couple is best known for their 6-inch height difference. Lucas stands at a modest 5' 6" (ideal leverage for a wrestler) while Ellie towers over him at 6' 2" (perfect for volleyball spikes).

The two share an account (@ellie_and_lucas) and document their relationship there with the cutest videos you've ever seen.

In one video, he playfully picks her up and promptly topples over in the process — 'lift your girlfriend' challenges be damned. In another, she dons high heels and he has to reach on his very tippy-toes to kiss her. In another clip, they run a photo of themselves through a cartoon filter — which bafflingly switches their heights and makes Lucas taller!

Through it all, one thing is clear: The striking height difference doesn't bother them one bit. In fact, they seem to have a lot of fun poking fun at it and playing with people's expectations in some of their 'skits'. Their non-chalance may not have always been the case, however.


@ellie_and_lucas

Just a boy (and girl) ✨in love✨

In an interview with Big Ten Network, Holzman said that she and Byrd started off as great friends. He had feelings for her but initially she had trouble seeing past the height difference. And it's true — there is a lot of pressure, judgment, and cultural taboo attached to height in relationships. A large majority of women prefer a male partner to be taller than them — and on the other hand, most men prefer to be the taller one in relationships. So falling into a situation that doesn't fit that mold can be uncomfortable at first, and it can take some mental reprogramming to get used to it.

"But then once I got over it, it flourished into this kind of beautiful thing," Holzman said.

People can't get enough of Lucas and Ellie's viral love story.

Not only are they a charming and fun-loving couple that's easy to root for (hence their top video having over 1.5 million views), Holzman and Byrd are offering amazing representation for the 'short king/tall queen' couples out there who don't have nearly enough visibility.

"I love the height difference representation my husband is 4 inches shorter than me," one commenter wrote under a video.

"the height rep 😭❤️ I’m 5’10 and my bf is 5’5- wishing you two nothing but the best," said another.

The short guys, out there, in particular are loving this story. They've been told their whole lives that dating a taller girl is off limits — quite literally, out of reach! — and are stunned to see that that's simply not true. Comments pour in every day from people saying that Lucas "won life."

@ellie_and_lucas

Still get giddy for date nights 😊😊

"Short kings, we need to study this man and his confidence. It’s possible," one joked.

"Dude is living the dream," wrote another.

Ellie, too, deserves plenty of props for looking past cultural taboos to find real love. While short guys who 'land' taller girlfriends get applauded for somehow pulling off the impossible, women risk being judged, mocked, and looked down upon if their partner doesn't fit certain gendered norms. It's yet another unfair double-standard standing in the way of couples just looking for a real connection.

Giphy

Height disparity in relationships is getting more visibility these days, which is slowly helping to normalize it.

The best and brightest example has to be Zendaya, who is about 2-3 inches taller than her fiance, Tom Holland — even taller in heels on the red carpet! There's also Tina Fey and her composer husband Jeff Richmond who have a height difference of about 3 inches. And there's Daniel Radcliffe (5' 5") and his girlfriend Erin Darke (5' 7").

But nobody has Ellie Holzman and Lucas Byrd beat. The confidence and love radiating in their videos — however silly they may be — really is making a difference out there by helping to give other short guys and tall the girls the courage to go for it.

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Men's Health

Counterintuitive study sheds light on why men take breakups so much harder than women

4 key findings show a lot of what we believe about relationships is wrong.

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There are a few commonly held beliefs our society has about how men and women approach relationships differently. However, a new study set to be published in the journal Behavioral & Brain Sciences challenges these beliefs. The big headline? In general, men are shown to value relationships more, be more intentional about seeking them out, and take it much harder when a relationship ends.

We know they're generalizations, stereotypes even, and that they don't apply to everyone. But nevertheless, they somehow feel true.

  • Women want marriage, men don't want to commit
  • Women want relationships and romance, men just want sex
  • Men are happy to be single, women actively seek a partner
  • Women are devastated by breakups while men are happy to be 'free'
And so on and so on. To be frank, the findings don't jive with the common stereotypes of men's attitudes towards sex and relationships. At all!


Giphy

The study — which consisted of a comprehensive analysis of decades of research across fields like psychology, sociology, and evolutionary biology — uncovered 4 key findings.

Keep in mind that the study primarily looked at data from heterosexual couples and Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) populations. With that said, the findings were super interesting.

1. Single men are more likely to be actively seeking a partner than single women

This is definitely a surprise. It goes against the mental image of the free-wheeling bachelor who's happy to date and sleep around with no particular rush to settle down (thanks TV and film for constantly reinforcing this one!). It also indicates that, in general, women are far less antsy about being single than the cultural stereotype would suggest.

2. Men benefit more from relationships when it comes to their physical and mental health

To be fair, relationships are usually good for everyone's health... when they're supportive and satisfactory. (Abusive or toxic relationships are far worse.) But the data suggest a bigger gap between single and partnered men, who can experience less depression, stress, hypertension, inflammation, and more.

3. Men are less likely to initiate breakups

This definitely tracks with available data, which shows that a whopping 70% of divorces are initiated by women. That's not even close to being an even split! So it suggests there might be reason for such a big imbalance.

4. Men take breakups harder and display more psychological distress afterwards


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Another study showed that women may feel the effects of a break up more strongly at first, but are much quicker to recover and move on, while guys struggle to fully get over old relationships and even view their exes more positively overall. "They also experience more severe physical health consequences, including an increased risk of suicide and mortality after losing a partner through separation or death," writes PsyPost.

When you put it all together it paints a really interesting and counterintuitive picture of what's really going on before, during, and after relationships between men and women.

So are men just not getting credit for secretly being a bunch of hopeless romantics? Not so fast.

Giphy

Did you know that men usually score higher than women on a test called the Romantic Beliefs Scale? Guys are more likely to believe in things like love at first sight, soul mates, or working through any problem in a relationship. So it's safe to say they're a little more romantic than we give them credit for. (Just because men have romantic notions and may place a lot of value in relationships, doesn't automatically make them good partners... but that's another story.)

But that doesn't explain all the findings here. The more likely explanation lies in the way that men are raised and socialized.


Men have notoriously few intimate relationships outside of romance so it would make sense that they'd struggle when losing the one person they can open up to.

It could also explain why they might not initiate a break up even in a relationship that's not working and why they'd seek a partner out more aggressively. In general, women have a much larger network from which they can find intimacy and emotional support and are less reliant on romantic relationships.

Men's general state of loneliness could also explain why they benefit so much physically and mentally from being partnered. It's truly amazing that having strong social bonds with other people can be so good for your health, to the point where loneliness and isolation can actually hurt your longevity.

It's nice to think that guys might be more romantic than we give them credit for. But taking a breakup really hard is not necessarily a good thing. Men might be more likely to distract themselves from their pain with potentially harmful activities like overworking, drinking/drugs, or seeking rebound relationships or sex. Men are also more likely than women to stalk or otherwise harm their exes.

The 'male loneliness epidemic' has almost become a meme at this point, but it continues to rear its head in new and surprising ways. Being the sole outlet for a man's emotional support and intimacy is a lot of pressure to put on any woman in a relationship. We've got to raise the next generation of boys to feel comfortable seeking closeness in other arenas in life.

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