We were only joking

Have you ever been in one of those "we were only joking" situations? Were you the one who was only joking around with everyone else? Or maybe were you the victim of the "we were only joking" situation?

This past week, I've dealt with a few of these situations. It's not new to me at all. I've dealt with many, but only a few of them have been hurtful to me. Usually I'm one of the victims in these jokes and not very often the joker.

For those that don't know me so well, I like to joke around and in my joking around I never try to hurt anyone intentionally.

A few of my friends lately have this joke going that I have a crush on this guy in my youth group. It was funny to all of us at first when I would say that I don't have a crush on him because he's practically my brother. But they've been bugging me about it more and more and I'm just sick of this. I don't have a crush on this guy. He is practically related to me. They first started this when they said I talked about him too much. So they automatically assumed that I have a crush on him. Actually I was complaining; a bad habit of mine. So? I complain about a lot of things. To some people, I talk or complain a lot about my own little brother. Do I have a crush on him? No, that's just wrong.

This week, their joking got so bad that as we were talking on AIM the other day, I just told them to stop talking about it because we all know it's not true. And after that I just left the chat room and refused to talk to any of them the rest of the night.

My other situation came along today. I found out that these three friends of mine were involved in messing with one of our other friend's Facebook profiles. It was wrong what they did. The answer I got to why they did this was we were only joking.

I'm so sick of all this joking. I like a good joke here or there, but neither of these situations have been very funny to me.

I'm feeling kinda hurt right now. Along with that hurt comes some anger, but I'm letting the anger out on here because I don't want to implode.

I'm a pretty laid back person, but when it comes to teasing, I will tear you apart. Ok, that's a little harsh, but I don't take teasing lightly. And don't worry, I'm not a violent person, so I won't really tear you apart.

Why not? I know I've mentioned this in two of my other blogs. I was bullied, teased, picked on, etc. in elementary school. I don't take that sort of thing lightly. I don't think it's nice. I don't think that's what Jesus would do.

I wish people wouldn't tease. I wish they wouldn't just joke around. I wish they were more sensitive to other people's feelings.

We were only joking.

I'm feeling hurt by this.

We still love you. You know we were only joking.

Haha, no you weren't only joking.

If it's only a joke, isn't it meant to make us laugh? If it's only a joke, is it supposed to hurt other people?

Please think about this the next time you tell someone that you were only joking with them.