The Rules of Love, 3rd Edition

RULE 5

Choose someone who makes you laugh

I nearly put this Rule first, because I think it’s the absolutely most important thing of all in a relationship. If you choose your partner for their looks, their status, even the rest of their personality, you could regret it eventually. Anyway, lots of those things can get lost along the way. Even personality traits can change – a confident person can be shattered by an emotional trauma, a patient person can become irritable and frustrated through illness or pain.

But a sense of humour will last you long after everything else has gone. When you’re both sitting there in your rocking chairs, decades after retirement, and the kids have long since grown up, it may be all you have left. And if it is, it ...