Teasing may seem harmless, but it breaks trust. Here’s how to stop and lead stronger relationships.

Welcome to the Stable Parenting Podcast

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Stable Parenting Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today. There are a lot of places you could be, and I'm glad you're here with me.

That means you're interested in being a better parent, being a better human being, as much as you can. And I just want to tell you, I appreciate all the comments, all the likes on our media, all the follows, all the reviews, and all the downloads that happen, that we get as a result of this podcast.

Today, I'm going to try to deliver, as always, something that will be beneficial to you and the people that are important to you. So here we go.

The Truth About Teasing

It's kind of a, an unusual topic, and here's what it is. Here's what the topic today is. And so, what I want to talk about is, I mean, it's teasing.

Okay, so, you know, I'm the oldest, if you didn't know, of eight kids. That's right. And my mom told me, “Shane, you quit teasing those little brothers and sisters of yours. You quit teasing your brothers and sisters.”

And then I got to be an adult, and for some reason, I guess I thought it was a good idea then, even though my mom didn't think it was a good idea when I was a kid. But here's the thing, most of us, most of us adults just think teasing is kind of harmless, you know? And sometimes we even think that it can be healthy, that it creates connection, and we only love to tease the people we love and stuff like that.

You might think it's how you connect, okay? You might think that it's how you, that show that you're comfortable with people. You know, it's how you have fun. “Don't take away my fun, Shane! I have a lot of fun teasing.”

So teasing might seem like humor, but here's the, here’s the deal. At its root, somebody's always being made fun of. Okay? So what it is, is it's a socially accepted form of disguised aggression. A socially accepted form of disguised aggression. Okay.

Why Teasing Hurts More Than We Realize

It's costing more than we realize. At its best, it wastes a lot of our time. Usually, what it's doing is not just a waste of time. Usually, what it's doing is eroding trust. It's reflecting our own insecurity or our lack of emotional maturity.

Because here's the thing, behind every tease, there's always a target. Okay. Even when you call it playful, you know, the humor, the funny in it, is dependent on somebody having been made fun of. Okay?

And now there have been some psychologists over the years who have changed their position. They used to say, they used to say… Some psychologists used to say that teasing could strengthen bonds and increase connection with people. And a lot of these same psychologists now say that it reinforces hierarchy or superiority, not connection. Okay?

They’re changing their position on it. Teasing is, is, you know what it is. Teasing is making fun of other people.

What Teasing Really Looks Like

That's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about, let me just be clear about what I'm talking about and what I'm not talking about.

If you think about teasing the way I'm describing it, either me or a group of people get together, okay, and I'm going to make fun of your weakness, your mistakes, your errors, your personal problem, whatever it is about you, and then we're all gonna laugh and laugh.

And maybe you're gonna laugh too about the whole thing. And maybe you just don't know what to do about it because it feels so uncomfortable, or you want to cry, or you want to lash out, but you don't want to be made fun of worse. So you laugh along, and you just kind of hope that it goes away.

Or a lot of times, what you do if you're the target is you change the target. You deflect it from you to someone else by making super fun of, coming up with something, you know, to make fun of somebody else within a much harsher way. So you change the target to somebody else.

And you're telling me that all of this, making fun of other people and what they do wrong, or what their insecurities or their mistakes are, or their this and that and the other, it makes people connect with one another? ’Cause it’s so uplifting? ’Cause I don’t think so. Okay? It's not so.

The Hidden Damage of Teasing

Most of the time we're not even fully aware that that's actually happening. And I'll just tell you about me. I noticed myself, okay? I noticed myself in certain situations doing a couple of things that I'll tell you about.

But here's what I'm not talking about, okay? I'm not talking about laughing, laughing or laughter. Laughing is medicine for the soul, okay? I work with comedians. I have comedians that are mentors of mine in my speaking business. I'm not talking about a joke. I'm not talking about, I’m talking about teasing, making fun of somebody else, okay?

Because what teasing is, is it's criticism. It's criticizing people without trying to be accountable or responsible for it. So it's criticizing without accountability. You can express anger in teasing without showing ownership, without having to really communicate it clearly because it's too difficult to communicate. So you make a joke about it. You tease somebody about it.

And then it can be disguised as connection, but it's not really connection. It's not sincerely connection. It is not, okay?

When Teasing Shows Up in Marriage

And coming back to me, here's what I found when I looked at me. Here's what I started noticing about me. In my personal relationships and my close relationships, in my marriage, I would be sarcastic.

And I wasn't even, it’s so auto-pilot for me, it's so default. I've been doing it for so long that I wasn't even aware of it. I just blurted something out, and it just happened. I’d just go on about my business.

So I, first of all, I had to have the awareness, and I started to become a little bit aware that I wanted to work on this thing. So here’s, it would go something like this. My wife would say something like, “These things were on sale, so I bought two of them.” And I'd say, “Why didn’t you buy seven of them so we’d have one for each day of the week?”

Or, I’d be totally sarcastic when I would say that. Or I’d say, “Oh, you bought two extra because they were on sale. Oh, is that all? ”You know, or something like that.

And that's kind of funny to me, and it's kind of sarcastic. But let's just think about what's happening right there. First of all, I just said it, okay? Which I'm not trying to absolve myself from responsibility. Those words came out of my mouth. I'm just telling you, they just came out so fast. It was like a reaction because I've been having this kind of communication, doing stuff like this, for a long period of time.

How Teasing Creates Confusion

So now let's just pretend that you're on the other side of my words, okay? You're hearing, you know, this.

So first of all, do you know that I'm joking? Or did you take it serious and literally. “Why didn't you get seven?” “I didn't get seven because…” and then you find out that it's a joke.

So first of all, there's confusion, okay? Because you may not be clear if it's like, “Wait a minute, are you serious? Because I got a really good deal on these. Maybe I should have got more.” So there's confusion.

Then if you're on the other end of this, maybe you're trying to clear up the confusion in your mind, and you find out, “Oh, he's making fun of me, he's being sarcastic.” And then what does that do to you? You're like, “Oh, ha, ha, ha, really funny. I'm glad we had this talk. You're so, such a, oh, look at all the connection we just had.”

Okay. It wasn't working well.

And by the way, come back to my side of the coin. So that's one side of the coin, back over here. Do you think that I clearly communicated a problem that I was having?

Teasing Blocks Real Communication

If I really wanted to say something about how many of whatever this thing was. If I had a position, do you think I clearly communicated my position? Absolutely not.

I didn't gain anything other than somebody in this relationship was more, either confused or upset. And that's what I noticed.

I also noticed that's not the only time, okay, that I think boys and men do this. I mean, we do it since we're kids, but sometimes a lot of us keep on going in groups and at work or at the gym or wherever, you know, a group of a… When we're riding horses or whatever you do in a group, okay?

And I noticed me in groups that I would single people out occasionally, not a lot, but every now and then I'd catch myself, you know, saying something. And it would be something, I'll give you an example.

When Teasing Shows Up at Work

It will be something like, okay, we'll say it in my hay feed business here in Las Vegas. Somebody that works for me would say, “Should I have so-and-so go deliver this hay?”

And I would say, and it would be in a group of people, and he would say, “Should so-and-so go? Should I have this person do this delivery?” And I would say, “Yeah, sure. He hasn't had an accident for two hours. Why won't you have him go?”

See? And so, what did that mean? Okay, first of all, it's a dig on whoever the person was if they're in the group. Second of all, I'm making fun of the decision, sort of, that he has made.

I mean, there are so many things wrong about this. And people would just kind of laugh at it and go on, kind of just let it go. And again, this was an automatic reaction.

And some of them wouldn't be so serious and out of anger, it would be light, it would be more lighthearted. But at the root it had sarcasm and a little bit of message to it.

The Hidden Message Behind Teasing

Now, what do you think was happening there? The same thing was happening that was happening back at home, basically, right?

There was confusion because they didn't know, I wasn't clearly communicating anything, just being sarcastic and they're like, “Hmm, I wonder if you're angry. What does that mean? Are you for real? Should I really have him go? I don't know what you mean.”

And then, you know, “Is this thing not resolved? What's going on? Why are you talking about an accident that happened a while back?”

And just, this is an example that didn't even happen, I didn't actually say that. But I would say something kind of like that.

And so I started noticing, okay, with me. I started noticing this in me, and I didn't like the results I was getting.

Looking to Role Models for Clarity

You know what else I noticed? And I would like you to think about this also.

If you think about this, think about this yourself. What I saw when I looked around at the people that I admire, the people that I want to be like, the people that I'm going for, my mentors, the people that I look up to, I noticed they didn't have a lot of this teasing going on in their lifetime. They just didn't.

And if they did, I didn't see it, okay?

And so I took that into account, and I would just encourage you to look around to people that you admire, people that are good at relationships, and see what you see. Okay?

The Truth About “Just Kidding”

Let me tell you, I, here’s the thing about teasing. One thing I said is that teasing is aggression, and it's hiding behind humor, like in my thing. But at the root, every tease has a target. Okay.

And a lot of times people say, and I do this too, I would do this too. I’d say, “Hey, hey, easy man, take it easy. I'm just kidding. You know, I'm just joking. Just joking.”

Or if it was the lighthearted thing, “Kidding, you know, just so you know, kidding.”

Okay, but what is that? Okay, you just jab somebody right where it either got them confused or, you know, took a jab at them, and then you're saying, “Oh, just kidding,” like it's okay.

Because it's supposed to be okay with you now that I just took a jab at you, that I just slandered you or whatever I did. And it's, “Hey, don't worry about it over there, person who's suffering because of what I said, because hey, I just want you to know, I was just, I’m absolving myself of responsibility because hey, I was just joking.”

Wash my hands of that, no problem, because I was just joking. I totally ruined his day and took and smashed his self-confidence, and he was already having a terrible day, and made him feel worse about himself and his life and his performance. And, but hey, “No problem, just kidding.” Okay?

The “Just Kidding” Defense: Anger Without Ownership

All it is is a way to throw a jab at somebody and still look playful. The “I'm Only Kidding” defense gives whoever the teaser is an emotional escape hatch.

You get to get away, you get to deny any intent to harm while you're still delivering a shot. Okay. Punch somebody and not have to be responsible for it.

So that's what I call just the anger without ownership, okay? It's getting a little dig in without taking responsibility for it. And it's a way to get a jab in and, like I said, and keep your hands clean, okay?

“Just joking” or “just kidding” gives us permission to say things that we wouldn't own honestly.

Why We Tease Instead of Communicate

Okay, why don't you think that we said, if we had something to deliver that was, that we wanted to say, why do you think we put it in the form of a teaser or a joke?

Why do you think that we did that?

We did it, first of all, because we're not aware of what we're doing, okay, speaking for myself and so many people I see. Just not really aware.

But why do you think we're driven to do it? We're driven to do it because the alternative of communicating what we want to is difficult. It's what's called an uncomfortable, uncomfortable conversation.

And so our brain, our natural brain on default, seeks pleasure, avoids pain. That's the one. Avoids pain, and conserves energy. But this is the one. Our default setting of our brain is to avoid pain.

Difficult conversation? Avoid it. Make a little joke and take a little jab instead because it's easier.

And then our brains going, “They'll probably get this, and it'll change.”

But it doesn't, because they don't get it, and it doesn't change.

99% of the time, maybe 99.9 it makes it worse.

Teasing Is Dishonest Communication

It's just dishonest. When it comes down to it, it's dishonest. It may not be intentional, but it's still dishonest to communicate an issue and then dress it all up in a funny joke and then hope somebody gets it. Okay? It almost never works, just having it hidden in something that's supposed to be funny. Okay.

Here's a quote that says that “Teasing is a cultural permission slip for emotional avoidance.” I like that. It's a quote we've said in our culture that teasing is okay, and it's a permission slip to avoid discomfort, basically. Okay, that's one piece, one part of teasing.

The next thing is, number two is that teasing displays that we're emotionally immature, our own emotional immaturity. It does not display confidence. Okay. People tease when they don't know how to express their emotion directly. They don't know how, or it's too difficult. And a lot of adults tease because it's just safer. You know, we feel like it's easier, it's safer. We don't have to have the vulnerability of an open conversation.

Okay, it's easier to hide behind my sarcasm than to get and have that conversation and say to somebody what I really feel. Okay, including all the examples I used about me.

The Root of Teasing: Low Self-Worth and Avoidance

And here's the bottom line here. Okay. Teasing, at its root, okay, what is deep inside going on, whether we're aware of it or not, are these things: low self-worth. Ever heard of that one on this podcast?

Basically, it's needing to feel superior by knocking somebody down, by making them the butt of the joke, needing to feel above somebody so that we can feel better about ourselves. The joke becomes a way to distract from the insecurity. It's a shortcut for the people that haven't learned how to communicate with courage.

The next thing that teasing does is it avoids intimacy. Humor can be used as armor to keep people from getting too close, okay. Because it allows people to avoid the real feelings. It's like putting up a wall. It's a shortcut when courage and vulnerability are uncomfortable. Okay, we don't have to do that if we can put up this wall, cover it, dress it up, and call it teasing. We can, you know, get a little piece in there, a little dig, and maybe somebody will get it, but they don't.

At the root, remember, the thing that I'm talking about here is avoiding intimacy because of a lack of courage, emotional courage. Okay? Because a lot of times we're not even really aware of what's happening.

Teasing as Laziness and Avoidance of Real Talk

The other thing is, it's really laziness. Okay? It's choosing to laugh over, it's choosing just to laugh. Then, know what? Again, this is not “don’t laugh.” Okay? I love to laugh. I'm all for laughter. Laughter is part of life and it's medicine. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about making fun of other people, okay, for any reason.

And if you've ever noticed that when you're making a dig on somebody, they might laugh and join in. “Ha ha ha, that's so funny.” But let me just say, a lot of the times, I believe that those are like compliance laughs. They're just kind of laughing to get along and hope it goes away from the social pressure. If it's in a group. I don't think it's genuine humor, genuine amusement most of the time. Most of the time, it's just like, “Ha ha, I can handle this discomfort. Can't you see me? I'm laughing along with you. Haha ha.”

But really, they're not uplifted. Okay. They're not uplifted. So, you know, why would we, if you think about it.

Teasing Is Disguised Criticism, Not Connection

Teasing is disguised criticism. It's not connection. Even when relationships, when people claim that we tease because we love each other in our family. The research doesn't show any improved connection. It shows increased confusion.

Just like everything, what I see and notice and learn in my experience, I have researched. This is not the world according to Shane; this is the world according to Shane plus research, okay. And what the research shows is increased confusion.

And by the way, confusion is the opposite of trust. So you tell me how much teasing you want to keep doing in the relationships that you care about. Just saying.

That's something that I'm working on, and I've really got down to much less, if any, of this. Sometimes I’ve got to watch myself or stop myself. I'll just automatically say something, like my example of my wife says, “I bought these, they were on sale, so I bought four.” And I'm like, “Why didn't you buy, you know, is that all?” or whatever. Because it just comes so, it’s become so habitual for me to respond to things like that.

But look, look at that. What could I say?

Choosing Intentional Communication

Okay, if I caught myself. “Hold on, hold on a minute. You got four. Now, let's just think about this. Is this something I really want to communicate? Yes or no? Because I'm communicating something. So what do I really want to communicate? Do I really want to say, ‘The fact that they're on sale, I wish that you wouldn't buy things. Sometimes I think that you just buy things because they're on sale, not because we need them.’ Should I say that?”

Well, I should if that's what I want to communicate, because here's the thing, teasing is unintentional communication that's not helping us.

Okay? I'm not saying if you want to tease, go right at it and go about your life how you want to, but I would suggest being more intentional about it because what I've noticed with me and with all the people that I interact with is, a lot of times, it's the same thing.

We get into these automatic habits that aren't helping us with communication, with the unclarity and the little digs, and they don't help. They don't help us. They don't help our own end, and they're damn sure not helping the other end when we're making fun of somebody else.

How Teasing Destroys Trust and Safety

People get confused. They, it increases the confusion. When somebody gets teased, they're left wondering, “Hey, was that a joke or are you trying to be serious with me? You're trying to convey a message to me? Am I just supposed to laugh and let it go? Is there a hidden meaning? Am I being laughed at, or are you laughing with me or at me?”

And all this uncertainty is chipping away at the safety and the foundation of trust in the relationship. It's chipping away at it. And even when people laugh it off, “I mean, can't you take a joke? I mean, come on, laugh at yourself. It's just a joke.”

The laughter, even when people laugh at it, most all the time, it's hiding our own self-consciousness when we're at the butt end of the joke, or we resent it. We're laughing to, you know, grit our teeth and laughing, or we're just trying to get away from it and have it go away. So we just laugh and hope it just disappears.

Okay, that is not bonding according to me. Okay?

The Myth That Teasing Builds Connection

And so this idea that if we want to include people and love people and connect with people, we're going to like tease them, it’s, it’s a myth.

Okay, it is a myth. Teasing does not build closeness. It doesn't build closeness, okay? It's often defended as like, we do it to include people, it's inclusion. Okay, inclusion depends on tolerating ridicule doesn't sound like the kind of inclusion I want to be included in, or probably anybody on the other end of it either.

Okay, when people laugh at their own expense, they're usually not celebrating the idea that they're strong enough to laugh at their own confidence. They're usually showing that they've learned to adapt to the discomfort of it feels so bad, but they can suck it up and handle it.

Learning to Handle Discomfort in Relationships

And I'm not for avoiding discomfort. I'm for being able to handle discomfort because about half of life’s going to be discomfort, and we need to learn how to handle discomfort. I just am saying, how much discomfort do we want to be dishing out to the people that we love if we're trying to have a good connection, a good relationship? That's my question.

We've normalized in our society the idea that in order to belong, you have to be able to take a joke. Take a joke meaning somebody needs to be able to make fun of you, and you're supposed to laugh at it, and that's what you're supposed to do, and that's supposed to be hunky damn dory, and it's not a lot of the time, okay, most of the time.

What we're really celebrating is not strength. It's just like the ability to tolerate all the stuff you got going over there. Which, by the way, just seems like a big waste of time. A big waste of time.

Different Types of Teasing and Their Hidden Motives

Okay, there's different kinds of teasing, like the playful and it's not really taking a hard shot, you know. Sometimes we're just experimenting with a little playful tease, like light sarcasm. But most of the time that always has a hidden motive. It's testing a boundary or it's attention-seeking.

What's happening underneath this playful place of playful sarcasm is just, is usually discomfort with intimacy or emotional immaturity.

There's affectionate teasing. You know, couples or parents that tease as a sign of closeness, but the hidden motive in that is usually avoiding being vulnerable. Okay. And the outcome, the result is, is you get more uncertainty and less trust.

There's public teasing, like I talked about, or group teasing, jokes made in front of other people at somebody else's expense. The hidden motive there is like superiority or because of insecurity. Okay. The outcome there, not good either. It reinforces the superiority or the power imbalance. There's nothing good happening here.

Habitual Teasing and Emotional Immaturity

Okay, habitual teasing. Okay, you, maybe you know somebody that's just constantly like nonstop, or groups of people that are like this too much. They tease about everything all the time.

The hidden motive here or unaware motive a lot of time can be chronic insecurity, big-time insecurity, emotional laziness. You're just like, really? And again, avoidance of real true talk, communication.

The outcome is the same. You never build any depth to the relationship, only surface-level relationships, because you can't have it when you're chipping away at the trust consistently. Okay.

The psychology behind it, inside of it again, is that it comes from low self-worth. We need to chip, break somebody down so that we feel better. There's insecurity that is deflecting the focus off of my own insecurity to somebody else's problem.

We have a fear of intimacy that we don't have the courage to expose ourselves because we might be damaged. We wrap it up in a tease of somebody else and push it away, or we have a desire for control. Okay. And we do that. We wrap up our trying to control people into a tease into the conversation.

Why Teasing Is a Waste of Time

And I think, like I said before, at its best, if we're teasing other people, it's a waste, it’s just we're wasting our time because there's nothing productive about it. It doesn't resolve conflict. It doesn't build trust, and it doesn't help improve the relationship.

So, I mean, what are other things that you could do with the same amount of time? You could do, in my example, communicate clearly what you actually want to communicate. Okay? Honest and direct, straight up. Have the conversation even though it might be difficult.

I think that every minute that you’re just spent teasing is just a minute lost. Okay. In this precious life, when you only get so many minutes. Man, that’s the way I’m looking at it. And I'm not saying that I'm a hundred percent on this. I'm just saying that for me, it's something that I am working on doing less and less.

And it seems to be helping, quite honestly. Because the times that I catch myself and I say, “Wait a minute, Shane, what do I want to communicate here?” And I actually attempt to do that, man, now we're talking about a total 180 result.

I start to get a good result, and those little results add up to a better relationship. And it doesn't take a whole hell of a long time when you're not chipping away at the trust, okay?

How Teasing Keeps Relationships Shallow

It keeps people shallow. Teasing keeps people shallow. They're always joking. It's never real, and that's how relationships become hollow, you know? They're just all surface, and they're no depth.

It teaches people, and parents, it teaches people, and especially kids, how to, how to behave because they see adults model it. They see that humor and belittling people is normal. This is how people interact with each other, that it's not harmless.

And basically, we're teaching our own kids how to have emotional confusion in their life. Okay.

The Fear Beneath Teasing

The deeper truth is that teasing reflects a fear of honesty. Really, it is fear. Fear is where it's coming from, fear of saying what we really mean, the fear of showing who we really are because we're insecure, we're not really certain, we're not fully okay with who we are.

And our culture fully accepts it. As a matter of fact, we reward sarcasm, and sometimes we get punished for sincerity. So we tease instead of telling the truth.

A lot of times we laugh instead of listening. But what that is, is it's avoidance. Okay, we're just kicking the can down the road because something bad is going to happen, and we're making it worse.

I'm going to say this, I said this in the beginning, but I'll say it again. Criticism, teasing at its root, is criticism without accountability. It's anger without ownership, and it's connection, insincere connection. It's connection without sincerity. There's nothing emotionally healthy about it.

Building Trust Through Honest Communication

So, you know, when people, when people begin to relax, when they trust us and they know that they won't be the next one in the punchline, they're not going to be the next butt of the joke, you start to get more respect.

You show maturity and control by speaking to people directly. And you just have more peace. You have more peace in your heart and more peace in the relationship because you have less noise and confusion and more truth, and which, and more trust.

So, you know, I ask you to take a look at yourself as far as this, because what this is, is a communication skill. It's becoming aware of what you're doing and how one little facet of how you interact with people, and see if you want to make a change and observe what's happening.

Okay, why do I tease? And when am I teasing? What am I avoiding when I make a joke instead of speaking honestly? These are questions, okay? When you know, just stop and observe yourself and see what's going on.

Teasing Is the Language of Fear

Teasing really is the language of fear. It's the language of fear, fear of being real. And the more that, and the more that we let go of it, the more peace, the more trust, and the more depth that we can gain in our relationships.

Because real strength isn't having a good comeback to a joke or a dig. It’s in being to, the real strength is in being able to speak your truth without needing to disguise it.

Okay, to be yourself, to be open, to be vulnerable, to be courageous, to be assertive, to be genuine, that is, that’s the real strength.

Closing Thoughts and Encouragement

Every word that we speak to one another is either building somebody up or breaking them down. And I hope you join me in making sure that our words, as much as we can. We're not going to hit 100%, but more and more, that our words are building people, building ourselves, and building other people.

That is my hope for you and the world, and me and the world, and all of us.

Again, thank you for being here with me today. Make sure you check out the amazing offer we have at Stable Living Coaching. You don't want to miss that. It's only going to be till the end of this year, so you're going to want to make sure that you get in on that right away.

And remember, my friends, you cannot fail as long as you Don't Ever Stop Chasin’ It.