it may not seem like it but teasing done
with affection and skill is a profound
human accomplishment there is a nasty
teasing of course in which we pick away
at a sore spot in someone’s life but
here we’re talking of the affectionate
version something generous and loving
which feels good to be on the receiving
end of it can be lovely to be teased
when for example you’re a teenager and
in a grumpy sullen mood and your kindly
dad nicknames you Hamlet Shakespeare’s
Danish prince of gloom or when you’re 45
and pretty serious in business and your
old university friends come around and
call you by that name they made up for
you when you were aged 19 the night you
failed is maleeh trying to pick up a
German girl who was in town all of us
get a bit unbalanced in one way or
another too serious too gloomy too jokey
and so we all benefit from being tugged
back towards a healthier mean the good
teaser latches on to and responds to our
distinctive imbalances and gets
compassionately constructive about
trying to change us not by delivering a
stern lesson but by helping us to notice
our excesses and laugh at them we sense
the teaser trying to give us a useful
little shove in a good and secretly
welcome direction and therefore we know
that at it’s affection at best teasing
is at once sweet and constructive the
English literary critic Cyril Connolly
once famously said imprisoned in every
fat man is a thin man wildly signaling
to be let out it’s a general idea with
multiple variants
inside the fussy / formal individual
there’s a more relaxed person looking
for an opening there’s an ambitious
eager self quietly despairing within the
lazy man the gloomy disenchanted cynic
harbors a more cheery sunny sub self in
need of more recognition the teasing
remark speaks over the head of one’s
dominant personality to the subordinated
side of the self whom it helps to
release and relax
there’s a moment in the line of beauty a
novel by Allen hauling Hirst set in the
1980s in which Nick the charming young
central character is invited to a grand
party where he meets the British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher everyone is
slightly terrified of her but Nick
warmly and teasingly suggests that she
might like to dance to a pop song the
other guests are horrified she’s meant
to be obsessed by stringent economic
reform and hard-nosed politics but after
a brief in a struggle she replies with a
smile you know I’d like that very much
perhaps if in reality there’d been more
people to tease her the pop loving
dancing side of mrs. Thatcher might have
played a greater role in national
affairs and history would have been
different
when we enjoy being warmly teased it’s
because the teasing remark emerges from
a genuine insight into who we are this
person has studied us and put their
finger on a struggle that’s going on in
us they’ve taken the part of a nice but
currently under supported side of who we
are it’s pleasing because normally
others don’t see much past the front we
put on for the world typically the world
just thinks of us as gloomy or Stern or
intellectual or obsessed by fashion the
teaser does us the favor of recognizing
that the dominant front isn’t telling
the whole story they’re kind enough and
perceptive enough to see past the
surface perhaps the most instructive
question we can ask the one that teaches
us most about the value of affectionate
teaching is simply what do I need to be teased about
with affection and skill is a profound
human accomplishment there is a nasty
teasing of course in which we pick away
at a sore spot in someone’s life but
here we’re talking of the affectionate
version something generous and loving
which feels good to be on the receiving
end of it can be lovely to be teased
when for example you’re a teenager and
in a grumpy sullen mood and your kindly
dad nicknames you Hamlet Shakespeare’s
Danish prince of gloom or when you’re 45
and pretty serious in business and your
old university friends come around and
call you by that name they made up for
you when you were aged 19 the night you
failed is maleeh trying to pick up a
German girl who was in town all of us
get a bit unbalanced in one way or
another too serious too gloomy too jokey
and so we all benefit from being tugged
back towards a healthier mean the good
teaser latches on to and responds to our
distinctive imbalances and gets
compassionately constructive about
trying to change us not by delivering a
stern lesson but by helping us to notice
our excesses and laugh at them we sense
the teaser trying to give us a useful
little shove in a good and secretly
welcome direction and therefore we know
that at it’s affection at best teasing
is at once sweet and constructive the
English literary critic Cyril Connolly
once famously said imprisoned in every
fat man is a thin man wildly signaling
to be let out it’s a general idea with
multiple variants
inside the fussy / formal individual
there’s a more relaxed person looking
for an opening there’s an ambitious
eager self quietly despairing within the
lazy man the gloomy disenchanted cynic
harbors a more cheery sunny sub self in
need of more recognition the teasing
remark speaks over the head of one’s
dominant personality to the subordinated
side of the self whom it helps to
release and relax
there’s a moment in the line of beauty a
novel by Allen hauling Hirst set in the
1980s in which Nick the charming young
central character is invited to a grand
party where he meets the British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher everyone is
slightly terrified of her but Nick
warmly and teasingly suggests that she
might like to dance to a pop song the
other guests are horrified she’s meant
to be obsessed by stringent economic
reform and hard-nosed politics but after
a brief in a struggle she replies with a
smile you know I’d like that very much
perhaps if in reality there’d been more
people to tease her the pop loving
dancing side of mrs. Thatcher might have
played a greater role in national
affairs and history would have been
different
when we enjoy being warmly teased it’s
because the teasing remark emerges from
a genuine insight into who we are this
person has studied us and put their
finger on a struggle that’s going on in
us they’ve taken the part of a nice but
currently under supported side of who we
are it’s pleasing because normally
others don’t see much past the front we
put on for the world typically the world
just thinks of us as gloomy or Stern or
intellectual or obsessed by fashion the
teaser does us the favor of recognizing
that the dominant front isn’t telling
the whole story they’re kind enough and
perceptive enough to see past the
surface perhaps the most instructive
question we can ask the one that teaches
us most about the value of affectionate
teaching is simply what do I need to be teased about
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