from "Want a guy with a great sense of humor?"   Five very funny guys fess up about what it's like to date them, bed them, and,  yes,  dump them

by Sarah Thyre  --  Cosmopolitan   --   Pg. 82 - 86

Conan O'Brien is on television most nights of the week as host of NBC's Late Night.

Why do you think women say they want a man with a sense of humor?

I think they're lying, probably. I think they really like guys who are handsome and have lots of money, but that doesn't sound good. Then they just say about the shallow that they're with, Oh, he's so funny at home!

Do you look for a funny woman?

I definitely do. If someone doesn't have a sense of humor, it would be like I had married a Tahitian bride who didn't speak English. [Pause.] Well, okay, I do have a Tahitian mail-order bride, but she's very funny. So I lucked out. But my analogy still works, because if someone doesn't have a sense of humor, so much of what I do is fooling around and stuff, and I'd last like 20 seconds with her.

Does it stand in the way of your becoming intimate?

So many things you would say that would really advance the relationship -- like "You complete me" from Jerry Maguire -- if I started to say something like that, I'd edit myself, thinking, that's not going to get a laugh! I'm going to put on this goofy hat and do a cowboy dance!

Other than the cowboy dance, what's the best part of being in a relationship?

That she accepts the other side of me, which is the manic-depressive who can be boring and talk about some documentary I just saw. Or I can tell her a pointless story, all the things I can't do on TV. She doesn't expect to be funny all the time and sometimes actually prefers it when I'm not.

Who do you think "gets it" about relationships?

Albert Brooks. He's the best at getting how torturous it is to try to be funny and real at the same time. There's this scene in Broadcast News where he listens to Holly Hunter bitch and he's immediately like, Okay, now let's do me. That's the way I've always felt about relationships -- you're just waiting for your turn to babble on about yourself -- and he made it sound so naked.

What makes you never want to call her back?

When she gives me a copy of Dianetics. No, um, uuh. . . I don't know. . .

You've never been in that position, have you?

I just have very low standards. When people make human contact with me, I'm like a puppy.

What scares you most about women?

The obvious thing: When they murder for fun. Number two is the whole concept of, This is forever! We'll be skeletons together, rotting away in our coffins! That used to really frighten me, but now that I'm in my thirties I see the advantage.

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