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A kid gets teased by classmates. Union Jack and American flags.

According to a meme making the rounds on social media, if you playfully mock your friends, you're "300 percent" more likely to be honest, loyal and have deeper bonds with them. But here's the catch. That number seems to have been pulled from thin air, as no one can find an actual source for that statistic.

What IS true, however, is that some researchers do believe that playful teasing can be a good thing. In his article for Psychology Today, Dr. Peter Gray Ph.D cites psychologist Dacher Keltner who claims teasing is "an intentional provocation accompanied by playful off-record markers that together comment on something relevant to the target."

Gray suggests that teasing amongst the people closest to you can take the form of showing someone you accept them despite their flaws. It can also serve as means to humble one another, encourage positive change and even test the boundaries of the relationship. "Teasing can be a sign of affection, a constructive form of criticism, or a cruel put-down. It can also be a semi-competitive verbal game, in which the players are testing one another’s abilities to keep cool in response to provocation and provide clever responses."

 teasing, playful, joking, friendships An animated girl teases someone.  Giphy  

It's also noted how vital it is that the person on the receiving end of the "tease" understands the assignment. If their perception of the "jokes" is negative, or they're feeling sensitive, (particularly if there are third-party witnesses) the teasing slips quickly into bullying. In the study, "The Role of a Bystander in Targets’ Perceptions of Teasing Among Friends: Are You Really Teasing Me?" researchers Ildo Kim and Nicholas A. Palomares note, "Given the provocation goals involved in teasing, being teased in the presence of a third party could be undesirable to a target. The target’s response can differ depending on who the third party is (e.g., another close friend, an acquaintance, a stranger)."

But what was especially interesting about this false data making the rounds was how differently people responded to it. In particular, Americans and Brits/Aussies seemed to have very different points-of-view, at least on this Instagram thread.

After posting two women citing this stat on the @longevityxlab, the comment section was off to the races.

A handful of people pushed back against the notion, some simply writing, "No." One, (and we can't completely confirm that this person is American) writes, "I really doubt this in most cases. I have a doctorate in clinical psychology that I earned 4 decades ago. Saying hurtful things to one another is just hurtful. I think men pretend to be comfortable with it because it seems 'manly.' There are so many positive things to say to people we love. Maybe these friends are LOYAL to the friends who passively allow them to poke fun at them. I’d like to see the research."

Referring to the naysayers, one writes, "I’m assuming most of the comments are from Americans. In Britain we know this to be true. You only rip the piss out of your closest friends."

This commenter concurs. "Indeed I’m a Brit who lives in Australia. If I’m nice to you we have a problem."

This one gets more specific. "If mates don’t call you a K--b-head or a B-----d at least once when you are in their company, are they even friends?"

Of course, it's not just Brits and Aussies. People from all over the world including those from France, Brazil and Ireland commented that they essentially see playful teasing as their love language, as well. Obviously not ALL, and plenty of Americans take part in ribbing one another.

  Ricky Gervais discusses American vs. British humor.   www.youtube.com  

But what can be confirmed is that many Brits truly enjoy the "insult" play. It's just a thing they often do. In the op-ed "The Difference Between American and British Humour" for Time Magazine, comedian Ricky Gervais writes of his fellow Brits, "We tease our friends. We use sarcasm as a shield and a weapon. We avoid sincerity until it’s absolutely necessary. We mercilessly take the piss out of people we like or dislike basically. And ourselves. This is very important. Our brashness and swagger is laden with equal portions of self-deprecation. This is our license to hand it out."

He further assures Americans, "This can sometimes be perceived as nasty if the recipients aren’t used to it. It isn’t. It’s play fighting. It’s almost a sign of affection if we like you, and ego bursting if we don’t. You just have to know which one it is."

Family

I bet you don't know the real history of the gin and tonic. It's crazy.

Turns out your favorite drink might have a super-weird history.

This story is about gin and tonics. But it starts with Britain taking over India.

Actually, it wasn't even Britain that did that at first. Let's back up even further, to where the story actually starts, which is with a trading company in the 1600s called the British East India Company.

Long story short, the East India Company came to India and they were like, "Oh, hey, is it OK if we put a factory here in this coastal city?"

India was like, "Yeah OK, I guess." But then the company was like "OK, well, how about a shit-ton of factories everywhere? Is that OK?"


And India was like, "Uhh, no, what? Don't do that. We don't like that."

So the company was like, "Oh, OK, no, we totally understand, all good!" And then they sent in their private army to take over a bunch of stuff and claim it as their own. Seriously.

Of course, India ended up fighting back, but then the whole United Kingdom got involved and just took over India, 'cause it was the 1800s and people didn't understand how colonialism was super messed up.

At this point, India was suddenly under British rule. Which the British really liked. Oh, except for the malaria.

Image from iStock.

Things seemed really bad for everyone involved. But then! Someone remembered this tree in Peru that had a special property that helped prevent malaria. "Why don't we grind it up into a powder and call it quinine and all not die?" this person said.

"Good idea," said the British.

England came up with a great plan of giving this new anti-malaria medicine to its soldiers. Smart!

So every soldier now had a daily ration of quinine. But there was one problem: It tasted super bad. Like, really, really bad. It's super bitter. Even if you add water and a ton of sugar, it's still super funky.

Then someone had the bright idea of adding a ton of alcohol to the tonic. Because why not, right? And so the troops were like, "Cool, what alcohol do we have? Oh, here's a ton of gin. Yup, just dump it on in there."

Just duuuuuump it in.

Yup.

Keep going.

And there you have it: gin and tonic.

All the soldiers were like, "Hey, this is actually kind of nice. Also, I'm no longer dying of malaria!"

Image from iStock.

Fun fact: It's not just that it tastes better 'cause it's suddenly alcoholic. Turns out, it's actually chemistry that makes it taste so good. A bunch of the different flavor molecules in gin kind of dog-pile onto the super-bitter quinine and hide it from our tongues, making the whole thing taste less bitter and more herbal!

Yay, science!

Eventually, all the British soldiers in India started drinking the ol' G&T.

Then the soldiers went back home to Britain and were like, "Hey, that drink was actually pretty good." So they went down to the bar and were like, "Hey, can I have this random medicine and gin mixed together, please?"

The bartenders were like, "Okaaaaay." And the soldiers were like, "We're going to drink a ton of these and make them super popular."

And then they did.

Oh, and what happened to India?

Well, suddenly it was the 20th century and that whole colonialism fad turned out to be not so popular anymore, especially with the people who, you know, had their countries taken away from them.

So these people started pushing back against British rule and eventually kicked them out in 1947! Woo!

There you go: the twisted, surprising, colonialism-based story of the gin and tonic.

So clink those glasses to weird history. Cheers!