Some people hate being teased, because it makes them feel criticised in some way. We generally tease people about something that could be construed as a fault or a flaw, which therefore appears to carry a degree of criticism with it. Maybe the fact they have a tendency to be late for things, or the fact they bang on too much about a particular favourite topic, or the way they dress. Sometimes we even turn positives into negatives and tease someone for being predictably efficient or always impeccably turned out.

That’s what teasing is – gently making fun of someone about any trait that we particularly associate with them, dressed up jokingly as a negative in order to make it humorous.

There is a line you can cross here into bullying, of course – which can be a different way of making fun of someone and drawing attention to perceived flaws. But bullying is a very different thing.

The difference is this. People bully in order to make the other person feel uncomfortable in some way. It’s not meant to feel good to be on the receiving end. However, teasing is an affectionate thing, and we only tease people we like. Its intention is to bring the teaser and the teasee² together by sharing laughter, or at least humour. It’s a positive, feel good thing. Think about the people you tease – family, friends, favourite work colleagues. We don’t tease people we dislike. We might make snarky remarks (well, we might if we weren’t Rules players) but teasing is affectionate so we save it for people we feel affection for.

I’ve known plenty of people who didn’t like being teased until they grasped this fact. Once you recognise it as a gesture of affection, suddenly being teased becomes positive. What’s more, because we like the people we tease, we don’t use teasing to highlight genuine failings. We wouldn’t want the person to think maybe we meant what we were saying. Suppose you get really wound up by a friend who cancels arrangements at the last minute far too often. You wouldn’t tease them because you wouldn’t want to risk upsetting them. If you wanted to address it, you’d approach them about it seriously.

This means you can be confident that anything you get teased about isn’t true, or it wouldn’t be suitable material for teasing. So if your colleagues tease you about always being hung-over when you come into work, either it’s not really true or it genuinely amuses them. If it bothered them, they’d sit you down for a quiet word about it.

Of course, just occasionally someone may inadvertently hit a raw nerve. In that case it’s fine to explain that you’d prefer them not to tease you for that particular trait. If they hold you in affection, they should be happy to accede.