When I was a small child, I did it to my parents, though not all the time, just occasionally, and thought that I was teasing them, just did it because they hated it and went up the wall. I didn't feel that it was a compulsion (though I didn't know the word then, of course) or anything like that: just because I wanted to. I did "outgrow" that. But it's always been inside my head, especially, now, with replies like this that I do on web sites, anything I've written, sometimes bits of conversations. Around and around and around, and I can't let the pieces go and forget them, even though I know that they're trivial and I'm wasting mental time with them (and often, keeping myself awake). I suppose, for a writer (which I'm not, but that was a recurrent dream), it could be a useful exercise in how to say something better, getting the right word or words.
As for the childhood thing being normal "teasing", there was a cartoon in the Sunday paper last week, a boy doing it to his sister (who is working on something, maybe a letter or schoolwork), starting with sniffs and sighs, and when she eventually blows up and storms off, saying to the universe in general with a smug look on his face, "Teasing. It's an art." Since the cartoonist considered it as I did when I was little, it must be a widespread experience.
Maybe a large portion of the population has that bit of autistic wiring?
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Asperges me, Domine
12 May 2016, 7:39 pm
