Feels like, but isn’t

Two days ago Tamara W Runia addressed an audience of millions and in her address described someone worrying about their loved one with the observation worry feels a lot like love, but it’s not the same. As I heard her say that my mind produced several other things that would fit in the place of worry in that sentence, including teasing feels a lot like affection, but it’s not the same.

Before I began dating I spent some months observing and discussing with others what dating was like. In that time I learned (from whom I no longer recall) the following definition of flirting: Flirting is acting such that the other party recognizes you are giving them more attention than you give to others. So is stalking and some other forms of abuse. The difference is that the attention given while flirting should be welcome and unobjectionable. It’s not a perfect definition, but it will suffice for the point I wish to make about teasing.

Teasing demonstrates attention, enough attention to remember small things from the past and/or notice patterns. When you demonstrate attention it can can feel like you have demonstrated affection because attention is one symptom of affection. That said, attention is also a symptom of other things, including hate and efforts to dominate. To recognize teasing as a sign of affection, you have to already have a belief there is affection communicated in some other way. Teasing can feel like affection, but it’s not the same.

Out of a rut

In Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll has the duchess, who represents in part the essence of bad motherhood, sing the following to her nursing infant:

The proximate goal of teasing is to annoy, to get a rise out of someone, to be impossible to ignore. That can be a tool to shake someone out of one train of thought, helping get them out of a rut of gloom or obsession. It can also be used to shake them from a productive focus they enjoy to steer their attention towards the teaser or something else of the teaser’s choosing.

I’ve not seen this version of teasing used well very often. I’ve seen it attempted often and the first step, from current focus to annoyed, generally works well. It’s the second step, from annoyed to a new train of thought, that I’ve rarely seen handled well, so rarely I’m having trouble identifying trends in those cases.

But there is a trend I have seen often, which goes as follows:

1. Person A is thinking sad thoughts.
2. Person B teases person A to try to break them from that gloom.
3. Person A hides their sadness and smiles over their tears to make the teasing stop or to please the teaser.
4. Person B thinks they’ve succeeded and is more likely to try a similar tactic in the future.
5. Person A learns that sadness is something to keep to themselves because if they share it with person B they’ll get teased.

I see nothing positive in this trend, and have seen it so much more often than effective rut-breaking that I have little to no confidence that most people who think that they are effective rut-breaking teasers actually are.

Undermine to stand above

A sadly-common trend in emotional abuse runs as follows:

1. The abuser says mean things about the victim.
2. The victim starts to believe some of the mean things and starts to feel unworthy of affection.
3. The abuser offers some small token of attention or affection.
4. The victim feels grateful to the abuser for giving them something that the same abuser told them they don’t deserve.

Or, as I once heard an unpleasant character put it, to control someone who is better than you, tear them down until they think you are above them.

If there is someone in your life who is being mean to you but asserts that they are being generous by not being meaner, or if you feel like you deserve poor treatment and no one would be actually kind to someone like you, you are being abused. You deserve kindness, you deserve love without any meanness, and anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

I bring this difficult topic up in a post about teasing because I have not been able to define the line between good-natured teasing and this form of emotional abuse. Both teasers and abusers point out negative things about their targets and both their targets see the teasers and abusers in a positive light. There seems to be a difference in intent and severity, but that feels like a slippery slope I’d rather avoid.

Mutually-enjoyable pastime

I have friends who engage in mutual teasing as a kind of pastime or sport. Just as physical sparring in a boxing ring is different from physical abuse, so too emotional sparring in an agreed-upon mutual teasing match is different from emotional abuse. Just as a playful punch in the shoulder can be a spontaneous and painless way to communicate, so too can a playful tease. But how do you tell the difference between sparing, play-fighting, and abuse? And how can you tell when a well-meaning blow accidentally caused real harm?

I’m no expert here, as these are not sports I much enjoy. But I’m an advocate of meta-communication. In a quiet, unemotional moment separated from the teasing by time just ask the other party what they think. Is it too much? Would they rather you stop? Are there times or places that should be tease-free zones?

Hopefully the response will be something like it’s all good, why are you worried about this? But if the response is a little less would be good then you’ve learned something useful. And if the response has any hint of it’s OK, I deserve it then you may have slipped, however unwittingly, from teasing to abuse and should make a full and complete course correction immediately.