In defense of the terrible pun as an act of devotion.
It’s Sunday morning. He’s standing at the stove in a faded apron that says Kiss the Cook, flipping pancakes with the solemn concentration of a surgeon. His fifteen-year-old daughter shuffles into the kitchen in pajama pants, hair in a bun that appears to have been assembled by a raccoon. She has not spoken a full sentence to anyone in roughly three days.
He doesn’t turn around. He just says, very casually, “I’m reading a book about anti-gravity.”
She freezes. She knows. Every cell in her body knows what’s coming.
“It’s impossible to put down.”
She closes her eyes. She lets out a groan that seems to come from the soles of her feet. “Dad. Oh my God. Why.”
And he grins, the way a man grins when he has just landed a perfect triple axel, and slides a pancake onto her plate.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have just witnessed a declaration of love.
The Anatomy of a Dad Joke
Let’s be clear about what a dad joke actually is, because it is a far more sophisticated instrument than it appears.
First, there is the setup, delivered with complete innocence. Nothing to see here. Just a man making conversation about his reading habits.
Then comes the pun. It is never clever. It is never edgy. It is so obvious that a golden retriever could see it coming from across the yard.
Then, and this is the crucial part, comes the pause.
Watch him during the pause. He isn’t looking at the ceiling, waiting for applause. He’s looking at you. He’s watching your face with the hope of a puppy waiting to find out if you’re holding a treat. The joke isn’t the point. You are the point. Your reaction is the whole performance.
And finally, the groan. Which brings me to the most misunderstood truth in all of comedy.
The Groan Is the Point
A dad joke is the only joke on earth designed to fail.
Think about that. A comedian who gets a groan instead of a laugh goes home and rewrites his act. A dad who gets a groan goes home and writes three more.
Because the groan isn’t rejection. The groan is participation. The eye roll, the dramatic slump, the “Dad, stop,” the hand slapped against the forehead: that’s the other half of the duet. Without it, the joke is incomplete. He needs you to play your part, and when you do, the two of you have just performed a little ritual together that says we’re family, we know our lines, and I’m still paying attention to you.
There’s something quietly brave in it, too. A dad joke requires a man to make himself deliberately ridiculous in front of the people whose opinion matters most to him. He’s volunteering to be the goofball. He’s handing you a free pass to tease him. He’s lowering his own dignity a notch, on purpose, for the sole purpose of making contact.
In a world that tells men to be cool, competent, and in control at every moment, the dad joke is a little act of rebellion. It says: I would rather be corny with you than impressive without you.
That might be one of the most romantic things a man ever says. He just says it with a pun about cheese.
Why Men Speak in Puns
Here is the secret that took me years to understand: a lot of men are fluent in tenderness, they just speak it in code.
Many men grew up in homes where nobody said “I love you” very often. Where affection was shown through a ride to practice, a fixed bicycle chain, a sandwich made without being asked. Where emotions were real but rarely spoken out loud. Those boys grew into men who feel enormous love and don’t always have a door labeled Feelings to carry it through.
So they find a side door. And one of the most common side doors in the masculine house is the terrible joke.
When your husband walks past you in the hallway and says, “I used to be addicted to the hokey pokey, but I turned myself around,” he isn’t just being silly. He’s checking in. He’s saying I see you, I’m thinking about you, I want to make you smile, I want you to know I’m here. He just put it in a disguise so neither of you has to get misty-eyed in the middle of a Tuesday.
A dad joke is a love note folded into a paper airplane. It looks like nonsense flying across the room. But somebody took the time to fold it, and aim it, and send it to you.
Once you know that, you’ll never hear one the same way again.
The Joke Collector
Every dad-joke man has a collection, and he guards it like a dragon guards gold.
Some of the jokes he’s told a thousand times. Some he found last week on a popsicle stick and has been waiting, practically vibrating, for the right moment to deploy. Some he invented himself, and those are always the worst, and he is always the proudest of them.
Have you ever seen a man find a new dad joke? His eyes light up. He reads it twice. He starts mentally rehearsing. He calculates who in his life most deserves to receive it and plans an ambush accordingly. He may text it to his brother. He will definitely save one for his mother-in-law.
That’s not a man killing time. That’s a man gathering gifts.
I adore this about men. They walk through the world quietly collecting small, silly treasures to bring home to the people they love, the way a cat brings in a leaf it is enormously proud of. The joke is the leaf. The proud little face is the real present.
Not Just for Dads
Let’s be honest. You don’t need children to be fluent in dad jokes. Plenty of men are born with the gift. They were telling puns to the school bus driver at age nine and have never once looked back.
And some of the very best dad jokes are told between lovers.
There is a particular kind of man who will deliver a terrible pun at the most romantic moment imaginable. Candlelight. Soft music. You’ve just said something tender and vulnerable. He gazes into your eyes, takes your hand, and says, “You know, I’d make a joke about the soup, but it’s too souper-ficial.”
You want to throttle him. You also want to marry him again.
Because what he’s really doing in that moment is protecting the tenderness. He’s not running from it. He’s wrapping it in a little silliness so it doesn’t feel too heavy to hold. And if you watch closely, you’ll notice his hand is still holding yours. He didn’t let go. He just made the moment safe enough to stay in.
I’ve known couples who’ve been married forty years and still trade the same three puns back and forth like a secret handshake. Nobody else at the table understands why they’re both cracking up over a joke about a fish. That’s not because the joke is good. It’s because the joke is theirs.
There is no aphrodisiac quite like being with someone who makes you groan and laugh in the same breath. Desire needs a little delight to keep it breathing. A man who can still make you roll your eyes after twenty years is a man who is still trying.
The Inheritance
And here is where I have to get a little tender on you.
Dad jokes are passed down. They are some of the only heirlooms many families have that cost nothing and never wear out.
There are grown men who still tell their grandfather’s jokes. The exact jokes, word for word, with the same pause and the same wink, decades after the old man is gone. They don’t tell them because the jokes are funny. Honestly, they never were. They tell them because for a few seconds, Grandpa is back in the room.
I have heard of more than one funeral where the most healing moment wasn’t the eulogy or the hymn. It was when someone stood up and told the dead man’s worst joke, and the entire church groaned in unison, and then everyone started laughing and crying at the same time. That groan was a family saying goodbye in its own native language.
And the cycle keeps turning. The teenage daughter who rolls her eyes so hard she can see her own brain will one day be standing at her own stove, flipping her own pancakes, and she will hear herself say it to her own sulking teenager. “I’m reading a book about anti-gravity.”
She will be horrified. She will be delighted. She will understand, finally, what her father was saying all along.
Learning the Language
So, ladies, what do we do with this?
We learn the language. And the first rule is simple: never let a dad joke land in silence.
Silence is the only real failure. A blank stare, a polite “mm-hmm,” eyes never leaving the phone. That’s a love note thrown in the trash. You don’t have to laugh. You aren’t required to fake anything. But groan. Roll your eyes like you mean it. Say “That was terrible” with your whole chest. Give him the reaction that tells him the note arrived.
Better yet, become a collector yourself. Find one he hasn’t heard. Text it to him in the middle of a long workday. Ambush him at dinner. Watch his face when he realizes the woman he loves just spoke to him in his own dialect.
I promise you, that man will feel more seen in that moment than a dozen greeting cards could manage. Because you didn’t just accept his weird little offering. You returned it.
And gentlemen, if you’ve been told your jokes are corny, I want you to hear this from me: keep telling them. The world needs more men willing to be gloriously, cheerfully ridiculous out of love. Your terrible pun might be the only thing that makes someone smile today. Your groan-worthy timing might be the reason your teenager comes out of her room. Your jokes are working, even when everyone pretends they aren’t.
Especially when everyone pretends they aren’t.
Back at the Stove
Back in the kitchen, the pancakes are stacking up. The daughter is still slumped at the counter, pretending to be furious.
But she’s sitting closer to him than she was a minute ago. And she’s eating.
He flips the last pancake, turns off the burner, and wipes his hands on the apron. Then he leans against the counter and says, completely deadpan, “Did you hear about the restaurant on the moon? Great food. No atmosphere.”
“Dad. I am begging you.”
But she’s laughing now. Really laughing, the kind she’s been trying very hard not to do for three whole days.
He doesn’t say I love you. He doesn’t have to.
He just said it twice. In pancakes and puns.
Randi Fredricks, Ph.D.
Companion Song:
— “The Bad Touch,” by The Bloodhound Gang, 1999
This article is based on concepts from Randi Fredricks, Ph.D.’s book Magnificent Men: How Men Are Undervalued and How Worshipping and Being Worshipped Can Bring You The Hot and Holy Love You Desire, exploring the restoration of men’s dignity and worth, the sacred and sensual dimensions of intimacy, and hot and holy love.
Author Bio
Randi Fredricks, Ph.D. is a best-selling author and provocateur whose work explores love, relationships, sexuality, spirituality, and the magnificent complexity of being human. For more than three decades, she has explored what helps people connect more deeply, love more courageously, and create extraordinary relationships. Her writing blends psychology, spirituality, humor, and eroticism, with a particular passion for restoring the dignity and value of men and exploring the possibilities of Hot and Holy Love. At the heart of her work is a simple conviction: all human beings deserve and are capable of extraordinary love — and a beautiful life.
