Can you tell the difference between teasing and an insult?

Post Reply New Topic

It was always a mystery to me in high school. I think it's because the bullies would bully me, then pathetically cry to the dean they were just teasing. They knew they could get away with hurting me, because the teachers in special ed kept saying I misunderstood their social cues.

It did not help that bullies are getting labeled with special ed disorders, and coddled about how hard they have things. It's become ridiculous, even psychop..I mean students witb antisocial personality disorder are placed in special ed. Then it's such a wonder so many people with Autism have PTSD and school phobia. That's what hapens when you put vulnerable students together with future criminals, which adults are privileged to be protected from, while children have to fend for themselves against them.

The only teasing I ever do is with a dog, depending on the breed. Collies, Shellie's and German/Belgian Shepherds, I usually like to grab their snout and shake, or blow into their ears. Basset hounds, Bloodhounds and Beagles, I usually like to lift up their ears and flap them like birds wings, or rub their ears so they flap around like helicopters.

In my personal opinion teasing is an insult.

Now on the other hand if someone is kindly joking around, it can be a borderline insult depending on the subject matter.

Once i am TRULY familiar with the person (i mean with the ones that i have lived with for long times) i can tell the difference most of the times because i learn about that specific person. But for anyone else that i don't have the opportunity to be with on a regular basis i can't tell the difference.

Sometimes I can tell the difference between teasing and an insult but not always.

When I was young, I could not tell the difference between good-natured and mean-spirited teasing. I felt that it was all mean. The people I thought were nice were "mean" sometimes.

Looking back, I realize that this was one of the reasons I had a hard time making friends. A lot of people tease in this area - it can often be a sign of affection. But, I thought everyone who teased was being mean to me. A lot of times, they were not people I only knew casually, so I didn't have a strong enough bond with them to know that they were joking. It wasn't harsh joking, but I thought they were pointing out something bad about me, or I just didn't get why they were laughing. I decided I didn't like these people (I was a bit afraid of them), so it shut down any further development of a relationship. I now know what my mom meant when she told me growing up, "People tease you when they like you." She wasn't 100% correct, because sometimes it is mean-spirited. I just could never tell when it was stemming from being liked. I always assumed that it was mean-spirited..

Many years later, I was explaining my lack of humor as a kid and one of these people said, "Oh, that's why you would always just stand there blankly when we teased you and you didn't respond." He said he and the others who gently teased me were expecting some kind of little jab back.

I learned the difference between good-natured and mean-spirited teasing when I started dating my husband. I knew he loved me, but he teased, and is still a big teaser.

Good-natured teasing generally does not involve any name-calling (though sometimes it does, but the names are not demeaning.) It is usually focused on a specific incident - something we said or did in a moment and is often accompanied by a smile and a physical reach out to the person being teased (like an elbow nudge, or a poke, or an arm put around the shoulder.) This indicates the idea of trying to make a connection with the person being teased.

Mean-spirited teasing often does involve demeaning name-calling and attacks they way a person *is*. It also will often be accompanied by the opposite of the physical reach out. Mean-spirited teasing often includes a barrier between the teaser and the person being teased. This barrier could be a large distance of space (such as kids teasing another kid from across the hallway in school) or a finger being pointed at another person (the finger and the arm stretched out puts distance between the two people as well as an actual physical barrier.) Mean-spirited teasing does not normally include a smile. If the lips are curved, it would be more of a smirk. Also, I think most people have the guts to tease in a mean way when they are in a group.

A couple of examples:

Say a kid is walking along the corridor in school and trips on his own two feet, falls down, and scatters what he was carrying, but does not get hurt.

A good-natured tease might be a friend who reaches down to help the kid pick up his stuff while chuckling and saying, "When did you learn how to walk?"

A mean-spirited tease would be a group of kids walking by and and one saying, "Smooth move, moron", with no offer to help.

Also being called any names like "fatso" that attack the "being" of a person is very mean. Good-natured teasing will only focus on what a person says/does.


What I am going to say below is in regard to good-natured teasing. No one should ever have to put up with mean-spirited teasing.

I think learned how to take being teased is very important. I do think it is very hard to learn unless you have a very good friend or SO or a family who truly loves you and teases. That is a safe environment to learn how to get teased.

Being teased teaches us to not take ourselves too seriously and to laugh at ourselves. This is *very, very important.* The truth is that we all have foibles and flaws and make faux pas. We do stupid or silly things. We say the wrong thing, mix up words, forget things. The list goes on and on.

We can either get frustrated and anxious about these mishaps (minor ones), or we can laugh. Someone who is teasing about something minor is teaching us to let it go. That teasing is a sign that it IS a minor issue. If it was a major issue, we would be facing anger, not teasing.

Those who love us will notice if they tease about the wrong thing and will not go there again.

We *must* let ourselves get teased. If someone is laughing at you, laugh with them. If you don't know why what you did/said was funny, ask.

I was not able to tell the difference as a child--even an adolescent.

As I got older, I became aware, through my cognition, of the difference.

I'm still not perfect in this regard, though. I still don't always get it right. I still misinterpret good-natured teasing as being mean-spirited, and vice versa.

I can't differentiate

To strangers, I cannot. Big time. Up to now, I still can't.

But to friends, at least I'm certain. And they, too, are certain that no one is really hurting someone else: unless one of us forgets certain boundaries that are not to be crossed; until then I won't initiate any 'play-teasing'.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

I have a real, real hard time telling the difference - so, those close to me know better than to tease me much as I tend to take it as an insult and get upset.

Apparently not. If it's someone I know and trust, I wouldn't even guess they are making fun of me. If it's someone I don't trust and I don't think they are nice people, I assume they are being mean and I am not sure if they are being men or not or just telling a joke but I don't let it get to me. I do wonder in my childhood how much teasing I took seriously because I can remember thinking as a kid other kids were being mean to me. I can remember my mom telling me a story about when I was a child, kids would tell me to do things and I would refuse and they would get mad at me and tell me I am mean. Then they would be nice to me again and it would confuse me. They did it to each other because they were kids and that's what they do and I took it all literal. But I remember as a kid, it was all real to me and serious. I don't ever remember seeing them do it to others.

I can't understand why on earth one human being would wilfully set out to upset another human being by hurling insults at them.

With that in mind I just usually think that 98% of people are just having playful banter and the other 2%...well, I just steer clear of them.

I only get teasing to a degree from a few people I know would not insult me. The rest I can't really tell. And then there's the "back handed complement". An insult disguised as a complement.

Most of the time I don't think it matters...I mean if I really dislike what someone said to me, it's not going to make any difference if they were just kidding or not.

Sometimes it's not either/or. Sometimes it's both, it's teasing AND it's also an insult. It's just a passive aggressive, backhanded kind of insult.

Then there is another kind of teasing that is meant as criticism. Like for example when someone is really slacking off at work, and others tease them about it, it's usually NOT meant in a friendly way. It's meant to show disapproval. But people will try to make it sound like they are just kidding to avoid confrontation. (Then if you happen to be the one who says something direct about it, you become the bad guy, when everyone is actually mad at the person who is slacking off, not you).

Anyway if it's not obvious that someone is teasing, and I don't know the person well enough to KNOW that they are just kidding, I feel like they are assuming too much familiarity with me. It's kind of like the emotional equivalent of grabbing my boob.

In my experience people who use a lot of ambiguous teasing usually turn out to be very two-faced and manipulative, and they are not the kind you would want as friends.

Is there really a difference? For me the only difference is how I react to it and what emotion makes people say it. If I take something seriously it is an insult for me, if I laugh it off it is teasing - for me. If they want to hurt me its insult-for them, if they just want to be funny its teasing-for them.
There is no impartial name. Whatever something is an insult/teasing are objective opinions of both people and the observers. They might agree or not.

I have two family members who often do this to me - my mom and my uncle.

My mom often insults me by calling me names, the most common one is "son of a b***h" (honestly! She is my mother and I am her daughter but she still calls me "son of a b***h", lol). It hurts but I don't let it get to me. I know she is just irritated by something so she gets her anger out at me. If it hurts too much just I tell her "Why are you so mad today? Is it the time of month?"(as a tease - not to hurt her but to light the mood so she realize there is no reason to be so angry) and she stops.
She wasn't like that when I was a kid so I guess those are hormonal changes before menopause or something.

My uncle is more of a teaser. He often comments my look, for example he says my tits are too small. But I don't care what he thinks about me so I just laugh it off by saying "As if I want to have huge balloons in front!". He just got different opinion about how a girl should look like. He was always like this. He was often commenting my look even when I was 8. I never cared.
I kinda like arguing with him. Taking his attacks is a test of character but I can distance myself and even consider them funny. We can talk like this for hours and other family members have a great time listening to us. However they often worry about me and scold my uncle for going too far. In their opinion he is insulting me but I consider a tease whatever he says about me. Simply because I don't care.

I can't always tell if it's good natured or otherwise, when it's someone I don't know or barely know. If it's someone i DO know, I usually can tell. That doesn't mean I like it, however. I have very low-self esteem (from an emotionally abusive mother and constant ridicule from the kids at school), and thus i have social anxiety disorder AND I'm an HSP, so to me, ANYTIME someone jokes with me like that, it triggers me and reminds me of all the times I was picked on in school and by my mother. It hurts my feelings whether i know it's good-natured or not. many times I simply won't laugh or even smile, or sometimes i'll just only smile, in an effort to passive-aggressively express to them I dont like it. Of course, they never get the hint and don't stop doing it. Saying anything outright is out of the question for many reasons, least of all I know i'd seem like an immature baby, AND most of the people I know would say exactly that and call me too sensitive (and honestly I can't say I disagree with them). That teasing thing, among many other reasons, is why it's hard for me to relate to NT's and humans in general, and would just love to live in a remote rural area by myself for the rest of my life. Human relationships are just too angering, hurtful, frustrating and tedious.