April Fool's Day
Rick's post reminded me that today is April Fool's. Ugh.
You'd think I'd have realised this a lot sooner, but I recently admitted to myself that I simply can't handle being teased. I don't like being laughed at.
Of course, I laugh along with everyone else and pretend everything's cool. No doubt it's a chagrined kind of laugh, but it's still a laugh.
The funny thing is, I laugh at myself all the time, but I can't take it when others laugh at me. I think it's got something to do with the fact that I hate looking foolish and having people know about my stupid mistakes or inability or whatever.
When I accidentally take a joke seriously or fall for a prank, I get this whole deflated feeling. Like, You blinking idiot, you ought to have seen that coming! kind of thing.
My family has never been one for pranks (what, you wanna get spanked?!), and we never dared to tease either Mom or Dad. They did tease us, though. In irritating ways.
When I went home last month, both of them kept teasingly reminding me of my $900 car repairs. Not a single day went by without some mention of how much money I have to "throw away", or how rich I must be, or how generous I was to my mechanic. It got so I actually snapped at Mom and told her that if she was so hung up on the money, she could just pay me back and stop making so much noise about it! (I didn't dare to say anything of the sort to Dad. It'd be "Off with her head!" for sure!)
And so I think I associate teasing with belittling. I find it diminishing - never mind if it's very innocent and "delivered with affection", as Mom says. Doesn't make a difference to me; it just looks like you're harping on my mistakes and ineptitude. I'm frustrated enough with myself that I don't want to be reminded, thank you very much!
As for pranks and jokes, I don't like being set up to fail. Yeah, I know people will tell me to lighten up, but I don't take kindly to the fact that you dig a hole for me and watch gleefully as I fall into it. It's... it's... wicked! It's diabolical! It's... not nice!
Self-esteem issues, anyone???