Teasing – Can’t take a joke?

You hear it on almost every TV sitcom. Funny insults are just part of the comedy. But it doesn’t work as well in real life.

People throw insults back and forth being clever and joking. No one takes it seriously… right?

Teasing can be damaging to relationships when words said in a playful way would be insults and put-downs if they were meant. However, teasing is quite prevalent in our culture. Parents make fun of their children, children make fun of each other, men joke with each other at work.

Joking around: we all do it from time to time; We are all victims from time to time. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to bother us a bit. It can be fun, break the ice, and lift an overly serious mood. Sometimes it hurts a lot and we remember the bite for a long time.

I used a new recipe and it came out weird. Dinner was full of laughs but I never made that dish again and hesitate before trying something new.

Teasing looks like a snowball. It starts slowly and each person wants to get over the other’s comment. The clever retort gains momentum and turns into an avalanche. I heard two guys talking. First there was a little dig, “Is that your face, I thought it was a Halloween mask?” Then came the biggest and best joke in retaliation. “Where were you when the brains passed out, turkey, under the rug?” Two laughs later the banging started and one complained, “I was just kidding, can’t you take a joke?”

The way the routine goes, if you object. then the other person belittles you for being a bad athlete. It seems to do anything acceptable if we say, “I was just kidding.” It’s like a license to kill. I have an image of someone sticking a knife in and saying, “Don’t bleed! I was just kidding.”

I asked the great psychologist Carl Rogers about the effects of teasing. He talked at length about it. “Teasing was one of the main modes of communication in my family growing up. You just had to develop a tough skin and return what was sent to you. It wasn’t until I got married and found out how hurt my wife was that I would just make a sarcastic teasing comment, that I realized the armor we had to develop to live in that kind of atmosphere. I pretty much agree that most teasing has the underlying goal of hurting.”

“I like humor,” Rogers continued, “but that’s a lot different than jokes.” The motivation for most drastic teasing is to hurt, and that hurts relationships. It would be much better to get it out in the open. If I don’t like what you’ve done, it would be better to say it in so many words than to make fun of you or insult you in some subtle way. Teasing can have different reasons and usually they are unconscious reasons and that’s the bad thing. If you’re fully aware that you want to keep a person at a distance, that’s fine, but if you’re joking to do it and you don’t know it, that’s unfortunate.”

The effect of teasing is worse when a person’s self-esteem is low and it is very difficult to judge someone’s level of self-esteem. We all have hidden hot spots, the sensitive spots, that we don’t advertise and that we may not be aware of. I once joked with a co-worker about some stupid thing he had done and he was very quiet. I questioned him and found that my comment had upset him. I thought he was smart and that he knew it, but he didn’t think he was that smart.

Unless we realize the consequences, we may continue to think teasing is harmless. See what happens after you’ve been teased. Monitor your feelings a while later. Sometimes it takes time for bad feelings to surface. I can react fine to the moment I’m being teased, but then I find myself remembering the teasing and wondering about the intent; or I turn blue and I don’t know why.

I grew up in an environment of ridicule. My friends told me that I should learn to take a joke, relax, be able to laugh at myself. I tried. I decided it must be a lack of character, not being able to take the jokes on me, but I couldn’t get over it. I asked my husband if he would please stop bothering me because he never knew if he could take it or if he would care about what he said. He agreed to stop bothering me and I was surprised that he was less stressful and that our whole relationship improved.

When I asked not to be teased, I thought I was the only weak and frail person who couldn’t take it, but I found more and more people who didn’t like being teased either. I decided to stop bothering others. I was worried that life would become boring and conversations monotonous, but there are many fun moments in life. We can laugh a lot without running the risk of hurting others.

Teasing can interfere with deepening a relationship. When I know someone is making fun of me, I have to keep what I say to myself for fear of giving them a chance to “catch” me. I can never be sure that one of my mistakes, weaknesses, or vulnerabilities won’t become laughable material. That certainly reduces spontaneity and keeps our friendship on a superficial level.

What is behind the teasing? Why do we do it? A motive for teasing can be as simple as habit or as complex as seeking power in a situation. A person who can make others laugh is the center of attention, while those being joked about are at the joker’s mercy.

We make fun of others for a variety of reasons, some conscious and some unconscious. Sometimes we want to make people laugh, be funny, smart, shake things up, and keep a conversation from getting boring. From time to time, we would like to convey a message without the risk of confrontation. We can dig our spouse in front of the company because there is security in the group. “Alice is such a bad cook that even the dog gets sick from leftovers!”

Many resentments can be hidden in jokes. Virginia Satir, world-renowned author and family therapist, says, “Teasing is often an unacknowledged hostility. It’s an attempt to avoid the responsibility to be honest. Teasing is often an effort to deny the presence of hostility and, in effect, everyone loses.

Some people want to keep others from knowing them, from being close to them, and will use teasing as a smoke screen. The prankster keeps the spotlight and no one ever finds out about the problems and realities of his life.

Claude Steiner, a psychologist, says that teasing is brutal for children and a form of psychological abuse. It is stressful enough for a child to be teased and lack the verbal ability to retaliate or be prohibited from doing so.

Teasing, joking, and sarcasm, saying mean things in a funny way, is accepted in our culture. It’s a way of paying attention to each other, but what a damaging and cruel attempt at humor. We can all learn to be aware of the effects of teasing. We can find more direct and gentle ways to confront ourselves and more appropriate ways to bring laughter into our lives. We can say to others: “I feel uncomfortable with teasing.”

A poem I found that has an Ogden Nash flavor sums up the whole irritating business: “People need to be teased like a dog needs fleas.”