Gentle Teasing

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Can there be a fermented milk liquid mixed with bees knees and magical moon pudding?

If the answer is yes, then it is a lie.

If the answer is no, then it is something else.

Perhaps it is closer to "mu", than "no"?

Understanding why NT's lie and how they lie convincingly is a skill we need to learn much better.

This is fibbing! I had forgotten the word.

"fibbing" and "teasing" are two categories that have an area of overlap. The technical term for that area of overlap is "pulling somebody's leg".

Is gentle teasing sarcastically accusing someone of something?

For example: My job network provider was wondering why her document would not print, a few minutes later she saw that she hadn't pressed the ok button to print. She friendly blamed it on me. I could tell it was just a joke.

My friends and ex-boyfriends all did the same bit of teasing.
"Turns out I got glandular fever."
"Oh, the kissing disease as they say."
"In that case I blame you."

It's good way to bond with a person. My mum and I are a bit sensitive though, so when she teases me I get hurt and when I tease her she tells me to 'f**k off'. Ahh, the love between a mother and her child is heartwarming.

How could this be a good way to bond with a person?

I can't really explain it but it makes you trust the other person more. If you both have a sense of humor and can laugh off a bit of friendly teasing it's healthy. It builds on the relationship.

Teasing seems to me to poke fun in a humorous way that includes the recipient rather than excludes him or her. Maybe that's why it can be a bonding thing. And usually, you don't do it until you know someone pretty well. Teasing means your relationship is just a little bit more casual than it was when you first met. This kind of teasing is fun or maybe you could call it joking around, which is what I think of it as - the intention is to laugh together.

Teasing, when done with the intention to exclude or to anger/sadden the recipient, becomes bullying. That's not acceptable.

This is interesting, I never really thought about it before.

It can also be used as flirting. Sometimes when someone teases me I later find out that they like me. And that is after I ignore them for acting like such a jerk. Oops.

I can't handle being teased because I can't tell when it's intended in a derisive way, whether it's intended to be friendly, or whether it's somewhere between.

I understand that it can be any of those, and with certain people I have seen other people tease I can tell a joke about the same things, but I have been told that I go too far.

If someone says something negative about me, I always think they meant it to be hurtful, even when I can reason that they might not have. It makes me feel very bad.

I was brought up in as teasing family. MOSTLY nonadversarial, but families are families. I have always teased a lot myself, INTENDING it well - not always calculating it right.

Two nieces in law - both teased in ways that would have been nothing in my family - felt attacked and responded negatively. It happens. I have aplogized and do when I can tell.

BUT - even if I am NOT teasing, ANYTHING I say may in some waty hurt the one I am talking to. The art is to know and be known enough to minimize that.

Let me give you an example where this has a very practical use. I has taken me years to get this.
Say if you are 18 and you go and work in construction ,the other guy's there will want to figure out your personality. How you respond. They are like us in this respect they need data , and they need to build a predictive model of your behavior. They don't have enough information on first contact, so they test. This is the kind of test they give to assess if you are stupid.

Test - " Harry needs a bucket of steam , go and get him one will you."

A " stupid " NT won't know steam can not be contained in a bucket , some water molecules will escape and those that don't will revert to liquid as they condense on the sides of the bucket. You of course will, you are not stupid in this way.

You are not stupid but they won't know that because you implicitly trust them you think they might use a product called steam and require a bucket of this product . You reason it would be improbable to call a product steam , hence you might have misheard, you might actually be going to fetch something with a similar sounding name, "stream", "steem,"- steem might be one of those German paints, perhaps that is what they mean...


They will not grasp you reasoning capacity or your intent and they will label you as stupid, and you will have to work very hard to overcome this label, and the real bullies will circle in like sharks having watched you miscalculate the meaning implied in the tease, and they will use it to get a hold on, expand on it and make your life hell.

However if you had done reverse-tease and said " do you want me to fetch a bucket of Gloopenstein as well, its like normal steam only a different color" and kept on with reverse-tease
it becomes a joke and they may even laugh, with relief you have passed the test, and they don't have to use their time and energy protecting you socially from every psychopath working on that construction project.


Here's the important thing: It doesn't matter if there actually is a product called Steam, or Steem they want you to fetch. That you have questioned the directive they have given on the basis of the information is enough. That is what they want to see. Hence if something is improbable , question it in a friendly way. But not too often because this can have the same effect as placing implicit trust where it is not deserved.

I agree. If people agree that it is a game then fine. But for someone who may not understand what it is about it becomes just another putdown.

As for the building workers, how would someone like me know when to get what they asked for and when to tease them about it instead? I may be able to get it right a few times, but more likely than not I would tease them and obey them at inappropriate times. And either way, whether or not they were happy with my response, I would be exhausted.

AS is not an impairment as a result of making things easier....

That's what I meant! It makes no difference if I know what teasing is.

I think I will exclude myself from this thread in the future because people cannot help me understand why it is useful and examples only make me think less of it.
But now I am afraid this might happen when (if) I get a job in the distant future and people will think I am stupid because I do not play their mind games and I will get fired for some reason.

Ursaminor: I know that feeling, too well. I also know there is something very beautiful, perfect and indescribable in everyday language, that is inside you and each and every one of us. I know there is a positive, benign intention towards others ,and it hurts like hell when they can't see it . That is the hardest thing of all to communicate to them.

I still can't even figure out the rules for making a simple joke.

But I did eventually get this rule. It only took twenty one years. We are just slow learners.