After five months of dating I decided to introduce my boyfriend to my parents. They had been asking to meet him for about three months but I was dreading the introduction for some reason. I couldn't figure out what it was that was causing such anxiety because I really wanted them to meet each other. We arranged to have dinner and while sitting at the restaurant I realized why I was so hesitant; a night of teasing and perhaps in embarrassment was in store. .
As I suspected my parents shared details about my childhood that I hadn't shared with my boyfriend yet. They all laughed about how "cute- I look in the morning when I first wake up. And when I tried to stop the conversations about me my giving my step-mother a stern look that said, "that's enough- they all teased me about that as well. For some reason this occasion of teasing did not leave my memory very easily. .
Purpose.
Since that evening I began to see this phenomenon in other relationships, in televisions, movies, and in print media. This phenomenon is present in all types merged friendships I am propelled to ask "Why do two people meeting for the first time tease the friend who has introduced them?- Initially I believe two different factors motivate people to behave this way, the need to bond with each other while talking about the one thing they definitely have in common and/or the need to secure their attachment to the bridge friend to the outside world and to their self.
Definitions.
Bridge Friend: The friend who introduces two friends from different social groups (Dunn, Cutting & Fisher, 622). Possible pairings include Significant Other/Family, Co-worker/Best Friend, and Old Friend/New Friend.
Teasing - From Robin Kowalski's Behaving Badly (178) the original French translation of the word meant to "feed a fire with fuel-, a more current definition of the word is "a personal communication directed by an agent toward a target that includes three components: aggression, humor, and ambiguity-.
