Reason for pointing out quirks?

Amongst guys, busting each others balls is a way of expressing friendship. A real friend will take it as the jest it’s intended to be; a friend can get away with things that an acquaintance or stranger cannot. He wouldn’t be doing it if he wasn’t secure enough in your relationship to feel he can get away with it.

Sounds a wee bit passive aggressive to me.

I find it annoying when people do that. I think for most women it does get to us. It can hurt our self esteem. Men do all sorts of crap things to each other in my opinion, and sometimes they do it to women also.

Guys are often like that, particularly with each other. It means he feels that his friendship with you is rock-solid, that he can tease you without it having a negative effect on the relationship.

If his behaviour upsets you or makes you feel uncomfortable, you must tell him. If he’s anything like me, he’ll be clueless that you are bothered by it.

My husband and I do this to each other all the time. We’ve been together for 6 years, so we know what things not to poke fun at and how far we should go in our teasing, but it’s fun and playful for us. We’re not the “let’s sit down and have a deep conversation about the meaning of life” type of couple. We like to be silly and not take everything so seriously all the time. I’ve become a lot less sensitive because of it. People say we’re mean to each other but it’s all in good fun.

Tell him—once—that you do not like him making fun of you, and if he is teasing, you do not find it funny. Ask him to stop. If he doesn’t, then you should break up with him, because he never will.

Have you told him it bothers you? He could be insecure, and it makes him feel stronger to make you feel insecure.

What @downtide said. Unless you tell him he will continue to have no clue. Don’t be obtuse about it either. Come right out and be specific. Guys can be dense sometimes and figure you are just joking as well.

It doesn’t bother me if he doing it in a nice way. I just weren’t sure of the meaning behind it. But reading comments here, I think I am ok with it. Seems it’s quite affectionate.

Try to check out his body language when does it. Is he standing over you, or slouched in a chair. Is he smiling in a sweet way, is he relaxed or aggressive. When guys do it with friends, we’re usually relaxed and just jerking our friend’s chain.

He’s just relaxed and smiling normally. We’ve been together 6 years and it’s only quite recently that he does it. He mimics me a lot as well.

Sounds like he’s just having fun with you. Couples pick up on a lot of little quirks over time.

@Adirondackwannabe Well, she doesn’t like it so he needs to stop.

@Dutchess_III Not disagreeing with that at all. I was concerned if he was doing it aggressively he might be using it in a passive aggressive way, as someone mentioned.

I don’t mind him doing it, now I realise he isn’t meaning it in a bad way.

My rule of thumb is this: if somebody says something more than twice in a joking way, look for the truth in it.

Maybe he’s just teasing in a spirit of fun. But maybe the things he’s calling attention to are things that really bug him. We often see the advice to use a little humor to convey a potentially hurtful message to someone, but the risk is that levity will make them think we don’t really mean it. Maybe that’s what he’s doing with you.

@Jeruba Would you consider that to be passive aggressive behavior? Your answer really made me think.

Not really, @JLeslie. I don’t think it’s aggressive. It’s more like avoiding confrontation, trying to keep the peace by delivering a message in what’s meant to be a gentle way.

I tend to think it doesn’t work, because it depends on the sensitive listening of the recipient, who may be defensive enough about the behavior to be deaf to subtlety.

Take an example. Suppose I have a lot of allergy trouble and I have a bad habit of leaving little wads of tissues around. My husband gets tired of putting up with it. (I don’t; this is hypothetical.) Let’s say he doesn’t want to start a fight, but it’s really getting on his nerves, so he writes to an advice columnist. I’ll lay a bet that the advice-giver will suggest that he approach the issue with me using some light humor to take the sting out of it. So maybe he says to me, “Don’t worry if you ever get kidnapped—I’ll just follow your Kleenex trail.”

It might sound like a stupid joke, but it can be hard to think of the right way to use humor, especially when the truth is that you’re angry.

So I hear him and maybe I think, “He’s just making a dumb joke.” Maybe I think, “He’s making fun of my allergies.” Maybe “He’s being mean and criticizing my personal habits.” But because I’m insensitive enough to engage in the boorish behavior of dropping used tissues in the first place, what I don’t hear is, “Leaving your personal trash around is really bothering me. I wish you would be more considerate and change this disgusting behavior.”

By the third time he makes the joke, I’d better be taking him seriously, or there’s going to be an explosion, and I won’t know why he’s so angry. Unhappiness all around.

Sure, it would be better if he just said, “Do you realize that you’re leaving a mess behind you for someone else to pick up? It’s really bugging me.” But some people can’t handle being that direct, especially if they wait until they’re already so upset that they can’t say it calmly.

I just think that if someone says the same thing over and over, in the same way or in different ways, it’s time to find out if something’s going on behind it and they’re trying to get a message across.

@Jeruba I consider that passive aggressive behavior. I find it interesting you don’t. By the third or fourth time the “joke” is told it would feel to me like the truth; the anger; is seeping out in jabs veiled as humor. I actually can’t believe a therapist would suggest such an indirect approach.

Did I say a therapist?

Maybe because I’ve seen so much behavior that I really would call passive-aggressive, a sincere effort to deliver a tactful message does not strike me that way.

@Jeruba No, you said columnist, somehow I twisted it in my head. I guess since I grew up with a father who never gets the message unless it is blatantly explained to him in detail I don’t think of it as tact, I think of it as indirect or hoping someone will read the other person’s mind. Not very effective communication in my opinion. Look at this Q; some people saying it is a just a joke, some people saying it isn’t very funny, other people saying he might find the quirks annoying. We can’t read his mind.

I still find your perspective interesting though. I am not trying to challenge you with my response. I think maybe I am overly sensitive to passive aggressive people. It borders on lying to me, it feels like lying.

My ex-husband is very much like that. Most of the teasing was just in good fun, which is fine. But some of it wasn’t very nice. Making fun of things he knew I was sensitive about, for instance, or intentionally scaring the shit out of me by jumping out at me unexpectedly. Almost like a little boy who values his own entertainment above the feelings of the recipient.

It may be a red flag that your bf only recently started doing it. As our relationship went downhill, I noticed that my ex’s teasing became a lot more mean-spirited, though he still insisted it was ‘just a joke’ (which I think was passive-aggressive, in hindsight). If things are good between you, it’s probably fine. If not, there may be some hidden resentment building up.

I think @augustlan has the key there: if everything else seems fine, this is probably fine too. If there are problems brewing, this could be a symptom that warrants attention.

It’s kind of stuff like, if I talk fast I don’t always pronounce my R’s right. So he will just repeat it how I said it.

But no, no problems (that I’m aware of)

Have you simply asked “Is the way I talk bothering you?”

Some people are so uptight.

I would second what @jeruba just asked.

He might feel he is trying to help you, it may not bother him, again we can’t read his mind. I correct my husband’s pronounciation or conjugation at times and it does not bother me at all what he says. I also am not making fun of him, it is purely to help him. But, we both are open to that sort of correction, and we don’t do it constantly or daily.

It isn’t a matter of uptight in my situation as @livelovelaugh mentions. My husband makes mistakes that I think are very cute actually, but in his position at work he would be expected to have a very strong command of the English language both spoken and written. Our friends tend to also have string language skills, so he himself would not want to be making a lot of simple mistakes.

@JLeslie What does poking fun at his cute little mistakes privately have to do with his job or his friends?

It’s all about perspective. If you take it as an insult, what else could it have been? If you take it as a joke and have the ability to laugh at yourself once in awhile, there’s no harm done. If you’re constantly analyzing everything your SO says and looking for real criticisms, the playfulness dissipates. If your relationship isn’t fun, it’s boring.

I actually agree with @livelaughlove21. Although if he makes me laugh as much as he normally does in a few years time, I will be worried about bladder control!

@livelaughlove21 What @JLeslie is saying is that by correcting him at home, hopefully he’ll avoid making the same mistakes at work. I worry about that with my husband sometimes.

I really don’t mind him doing it. He doesn’t do it in a aggressive way, he smiles and pinches me cheeks sometimes. I really didn’t ask this in a mean way, I just wondered what hidden meaning was behind, like love, hopefully.

@livelaughlove21 I am not usually poking fun, I am correcting him. Once in a while it is something to giggle about, but that usually is not something that might apply to work as @Dutchess_III elaborated on. Like he will screw up an American expression, but that is not really something that is applied in a formal situation and I do not want him to change it, I like those screw ups. But, he makes the common mistake many Spanish first language people do in the past tense. He will say and write things like, I did said I was going, instead of, I did say I was going. Or, I did went. It is understandable why that is a difficult conjugation to get straight. But, he is communicating with C-level people and board members, so getting that right is better than not. Although, his English is so good they would overlook it for the most part. He never uses double negatives, he uses adverbs when most of America seems to have stopped. This one thing is just tricky for him for some reason, and every so often some stray new thing pops up even after being with him for 22 years.

@JLeslie But the OP is not discussing simple corrections.

“If I do something, he will copy it, or pull a silly face to make fun out of me.”

It’s pretty clear he’s poking fun at her.

I think I missed something here. Are we discussing two totally separate things?

@livelaughlove21 I honestly don’t know if it is two different things, because I don’t know for sure if he is just poking fun, or actually correcting her, or if it actually bothers him. The OP seems to feel (which matters a lot to me) he is just teasing her.

The conversation did kind of wander a little discussing when it is not done in fun, which you can see above where @Jeruba and I had a short discussion, and I think @augustlan clarified some of the differences well.

I think sometimes women dismiss hurtful things and brush them aside. But, I also think men tend do crap like this with no ill intent. I also think it is very common for couples to not directly communicate with each other because, “they don’t want to hurt their feelings,” and that can be a mess.

I didn’t mean to cause any fall outs here. Please, I honestly just wondered if it meant he loved me. I had been reading Tracy Cox and and she said it was a sign of love. I just wondered what peoples opinion here was.

@Headhurts Not to worry :) discussion on fluther can take on a life of their own.

Yeah…we got off track, but it was fun. You can only talk about one thing for so long.

@Headhurts Only you know if he loves you or not. I’m just guessing that it’s just a personality quirk. It’s just something he does, and has nothing to do with whether he loves you or not. I mean, no one here knows him like you do.

Like we’ve said, if it bothers you, I hope you could talk to him about it. Some people take offense too easily though.

@Dutchess_III Oh I could, if it upset me. I think it’s just a case of him picking up my quirks. I am from a different area, so therefore I have a different accent, and he’s picked it up. Like just now, I said something to him and he answered how I would. Just stuff like that really.

@JLeslie Just didn’t want people to fall out over a silly question I asked.

Hey…we fall out over pancakes! Don’t worry about it. It’s been…years and years here. We stay friends.

@Headhurts… Does he do it constantly?

@Dutchess_III I would say often rather than constantly. I saw one of his work colleagues in town other day and she said that he’s started talking with my accent with certain words, and they just look at him, and they think it’s funny him talking like I do. I asked this question because he has never said he loves me, and I’m forever Googling things he says or does to see if it means he does.

I always say if a boy in your sixth grade class is nudging you and hitting (like a tap, not anything violent) you he is enamoured with you. LOL. Boys do that until they are 100 years old.

@JLeslie haha, yea, I would say you’re right.

You have been together 6 years and he has never said he loves you? Off topic, I know, but it stood out to me.

Ok, I am just throwing this out here, I don’t mean to offend, but, maybe he is just a dick.

Not a silly question at all. There are days that someone doing this to me is amusing and other days that it bugs the piss out of me.
On the days that I laugh at it, is simply laughing at myself. If it continues it can wear on me. It is then when I feel it is mildly passive aggressive and juvenile behavior.
I have always believed that it is more a reflection on the person saying it. Many people are insecure, whether they want to admit it or not. They make fun of others, so that they can make themselves feel better.

I never understood the purpose of someone mocking you.
If it is someone who doesn’t matter to you – PHHFFFFT!
If it is someone close to you and it bugs you? Tell them it bothers you.

What can you do to not let it bother you:
Stop over-thinking
Put things into perspective
Be confident in yourself
Learn to control your emotions
Accept yourself for who you are

Finally: Own your own emotions – Don’t Allow Someone Else to Control How You Feel.