La Rosa Knows

Relationship Talk: When Playful Turns Deadly (Sort Of)

So, I’m in a relationship.

I have a boyfriend, and he is wonderful, cute, and makes me laugh all the time.

We watch movies and cook dinner and hang out with each others friends because we’re in love. Also, we often playfully tease each other to keep the spark going, or whatever.

Except there are times when the teasing starts to sound like criticism, and this is a problem. Over the weekend, for example, David teased me for applying too much sunscreen. Granted, I am a walking cancer stick and the sun terrifies me so I lather up with SPF 85+ every hour or so. As a result, this was funny to me.

But then July 4th rolls around, and lo and behold he casually asks me, “Have you ever tried to count how many freckles you have?”

Here’s why it would be funny:

-I have too many freckles to count, making this a clearly impossible task

Here’s why I didn’t see it as funny:

-I am terrified of getting cancer and every freckle I see seems to be a kiss from death reminding me that my demise is imminent and will be painful.

So, the question is– how do you then handle telling said wonderful boyfriend that there’s a difference between playful and not?

I’m not sure what the answer is to that, but I decided to go ahead with the, “If you’re trying to make a joke then we should both be laughing, otherwise it’s not a joke line.” To which David rightly asked, “But how do you know if you’ll both be laughing until after the comment is made?"

To be fair, I have no idea. This is something I’m still wrestling with– part of me wants to say, "You should just KNOW” but another part of me realizes that’s a dumb thing to think, and I don’t want to be a heinous bitch.

Admittedly, I’d love for this to never happen again, but I’m a realist and know that we will continue to tease until another time comes when it crosses the line. So anyone have some sage advice on how to better handle these situations?