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elfsThere’s a line in this product review that brings up one of my sorest sore points. After her husband admits he’s getting older and needs more support, he buys a lumbar support cushion. The author writes,
Before he was effectively kicked off YouTube for his viciously anti-Muslim and anti-gay rhetoric, Dennis Prager had up a video in which he talked about marriages and declared “healthy marriages are one in which each person can rib the other without heat.”
I’m glad neurotypicals can talk that way about each other. Over here, in not-so-neuro-typical land, “ribbing” and “ragging” are basically ways that someone entertains him or herself at the expense of a supposed loved one. These things just hurt, and it doesn’t take a Buddha or Jesus to know that if you find yourself hurting your loved ones on a regular basis maybe you should just stop.
Life is hard. In a long-term relationship, ribbing is saying, over and over, “There’s something about you I either don’t understand or I don’t like,” and maybe if you find yourself in that position your should try to understand, or try to negotiate what it is you don’t like. Constant ribbing is a form of rejection, and for those of us not so secure, confident, and arrogant as to feel like we can handle anything, rejection just hurts.
I spent the next three years of our relationship calling it his ‘butt pillow’ (‘Here, you left your butt pillow on the passenger seat’) and ragging him about it mercilessly. In my defense, I’d never seen such a thing before.
Before he was effectively kicked off YouTube for his viciously anti-Muslim and anti-gay rhetoric, Dennis Prager had up a video in which he talked about marriages and declared “healthy marriages are one in which each person can rib the other without heat.”
I’m glad neurotypicals can talk that way about each other. Over here, in not-so-neuro-typical land, “ribbing” and “ragging” are basically ways that someone entertains him or herself at the expense of a supposed loved one. These things just hurt, and it doesn’t take a Buddha or Jesus to know that if you find yourself hurting your loved ones on a regular basis maybe you should just stop.
Life is hard. In a long-term relationship, ribbing is saying, over and over, “There’s something about you I either don’t understand or I don’t like,” and maybe if you find yourself in that position your should try to understand, or try to negotiate what it is you don’t like. Constant ribbing is a form of rejection, and for those of us not so secure, confident, and arrogant as to feel like we can handle anything, rejection just hurts.
