the back tap, N.T. game

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I thought NT's outgrew this after they left grade school but apparently not, and I cannot seem to figure out why they think it's such an amusing game.

What happens is that someone will be working busily on something, and another person comes up and taps that person on the back to get their attention like they need to speak, only when the tapped turns around to address the person requesting their attention, the tapper looks away and acts like they never did anything. They especially love doing this when there is a crowd around, and it's hard to determine who did it.

I used to have people do this to me all the time while in school, but haven't had it happen till recently,until this past weekend, while I was doing sound at church, and had it happen to me 3 times. I just started ignoring it, which then causes a problem when someone actually needs my attention for something legitimate.

That used to happen to me all the time at school.

So I just started to ignore it. If people really needed my attention, they could just address me by name.

What's more, once I started ignoring the shoulder-taps, it occurred less and less frequently until it altogether stopped!

Some people apparently never outgrow it. I assume that they do it because they are feeling playful & I'm a spoilsport for not playing along - but then, I didn't play along when I was in school, either. I figure they'll never learn to treat me the way I want if I respond to what I consider inappropriate touching (for me, anything from behind - especially my shoulders or neck.)

They do stop tapping your shoulder if you just ignore them - no hard feelings (NTs are pretty resilient about things like that.)

(I also don't answer to "hey!" - but that's not quite the same issue for me as touching from behind.)