How to recognize insults and playful teasing?

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A major problem I have is interpreting a lot of other people's comments as insults. When I was younger, I was constantly bullied and as a result, I'm a bit paranoid and always a bit defensive. I've been working on social skills with my therapist recently, and I've learned a lot of things...I never knew that guys like to "playfully" make fun each other as a way of bonding, and that girls will also playfully tease guys when flirting with them. Looking back at my highschool years, I've probably misinterpreted A LOT of things that other people said to me as insults.

So yeah...How do you recognize the difference between non offensive, playful remarks and actual insults when people are making fun of you?

I don't honestly know. I used to think I'd figured it out and in time came to wonder if it was just that adults are more subtle, leaving me thinking that they were no longer laughing at me. Now I just don't know. I just wanted you to know that others have the same problem, and for the same reason. I was teased daily for years, and always deemed to be the problem instead of my tormentors. I have trouble trusting anyone who seems to like me.

Wow. I have had a lot of trouble with this over the years, mostly at work. I am overly passive. I will not get defensive unless I am sure the person has ill intentions toward me. The result of this is that certain people walk all over me. This has been one of my main reasons for quitting jobs. I am pretty sure that not being able to tell peoples intentions is an autistic spectrum thing.

I think part of it depends on the reaction. If someone playfully makes fun of you, and you get offended and are mean, then they might turn into insults. At the same time, someone might initially say something that they mean in an offensive way, but if you respond "correctly" they might change their mind about you and decide you're cool.. so you can't always judge it like from a formula. And for different people, different reactions are "correct". And some people will claim they were kidding when they weren't.

Ok, that didn't clarify things, did it?
Yea, the not being able to tell people's intentions is an autism spectrum thing. NTs can't all of the time, plenty of NTs get manipulated and stuff, but then can figure it out enough to get along in the world, and to find friends they can depend on and whose opinions they can ask on things like that. And also get backup from those friends when there is a problem with another person. And they don't usually have that repetitive memory where things play back, so I think they get over things more easily.

I'm the same way...lot's of teasing, overly defensive. People can be so confusing and I agree with the last person about how they will say they were kidding, when they weren't. I used to obsess over this stuff, going over every conversation I had in a day, in my head. I've never really figured out how to tell. I almost got into a fight with a guy because I really felt he was abusive and aggressive towards me, but everyone else said he was kidding and I was overreacting...

This is why I've thought for a while now that playful teasing really should be held back until you know a person really, really well. It's all this assuming, assuming that people will get where you're coming from, and then assuming that since most of them got it that the one who didn't is overreacting. If you're upset, you're upset. It really is the responsibility of the person who goes in for playful teasing to recognize that sometimes people are not going to get it, and to be prepared to apologize and make things right. We know particularly well that not everyone thinks the same way. As it is, we're stuck learning how to cope and forgive people's stupidity, something I am not good at, not at all.

If it's people I know, my family, my husband and they all do jokes and tease, I assume it's playful because why would they hurt me?


But people who are jerks, bullies, mean, and then they tease me, it's probably a hurtful tease then.


Strangers doing it or people I don't know well, I don't care. I don't fret on if it was a mean tease or not because I'd rather be happy.

I had that issue in middle school. I had "friends" that would constantly tease me about the exact same things that bullies had previously harassed me about, then act like it was my problem if I got angry over it. There was this one girl in particular who wouldn't ever leave me alone. One day I got angry and called her a "moose" (she was bigger than most of the boys in the class). She told the teacher and I got scolded.

Surely it simply depends on the severity and who's doing it? Plus whether or not you've laughed about that subject already with them?

Recently I had a job waiting tables (meltdown, quit) but anyway.. Very small town, many customers were in every day. One man, a manager at a fabricating plant was talking about an employee and how everyday this employee (a man about 50) was teased and given a hard time about something, anything, by management and others. This manager said this employee "let it get to him, if he just didn't let it get to him they would stop" and he laughed, everyone listening laughed. Remember small town, everyone knows everybody else, they have all known each other since birth.
I think it is just power, superiority stuff, status, pecking order for the weak to feel better by picking on the sensitive ones. And the thing is, it's so random, who has money, who has status, and yet the haves believe they have because they deserve it.
The world is unfair and people try to make sense of it. Gives comfort. Isn't that what most of what people discuss here and other sites are doing? Trying to make sense.

Your explanation was actually very good. I myself if i am unsure of the nature of a comment will respond with a comment that could be either "playful" or "insulting" and see how the other person reacts.

That's dark. I understand now, as an adult, that if you don't let it get to you (or rather can create the appearance of such; it always gets to me and seldom shows) then the teasing stops. And yet children have something of a get out of jail free ticket in that they don't realize why they do what they do. They can be taught that it is wrong but they are not as aware of why they want to tease in the first place. The idea of adults sitting around laughing at the fact that they tease someone only because they can get a reaction, in full awareness that they are upsetting someone and finding it immensely funny, sickens me. Of course it would be lovely if we all were better able to let human stupidity roll off our backs, but someone's inability to do so is not society's permission slip to exploit their weakness. Not realistic? Absolutely. It's not realistic at all to expect people to do the right thing at all times. But reality be damned, I say, when the reality is mob willfull stupidity. Even if their victim is a complete tool, it doesn't excuse it. I tried, perhaps not hard enough, to find some understanding for the raw meanness I see in others, and failed. One by one, their acts could come to make some grudging sense, but as a society, no.

I expect these people would not be so smug about their actions if they weren't so many. They chuckle together about it to confirm that the mob is in agreement, and the stupidity continues unchecked.

I think they do it for group bonding. I've been witness to this kind of behavior from both sides. There were some really immature people in the group I hung out with in college. I got drawn into participating in a practical joke that was, in retrospect, way out of line - something I would NOT have been happy with had I been the victim. Needless to say the victim didn't find it funny AT ALL. Yet all three of the other participants continued to laugh hysterically and carry on behind his back about how he "deserved it" because he "couldn't take a joke". I thought it was ridiculous that they wouldn't apologize but I didn't know how to speak up. I didn't participate again after that. I had stuff done to me as well.

I also have this problem. I can easily tell if my friends and family are doing playful teasing, but it seems confusing with other people. I'm used to other people thinking I'm weird, and sometimes that can make it hard for me to tell if they're teasing in a good or a bad way.