Banter. When is it too much?

[lolo14]

I've been seeing someone for 6 weeks now, met through OLD. He's done almost everything right bar one thing... pushing it too far with banter. I like to banter, it can be very funny but he's referred to me as things such as bitch. He always says he's joking but I've warned him a few times but a few nights ago was the last straw. Considering we don't know one another that well, it's really pissing me off. I told him so, in no uncertain terms.

It's a shame as he's great other than that but my tolerance levels are low.

I've always had issues with men doing this with me, I guess I could back off on the banter but it's part of who I am. The difference being I don't use derogatory names to get a laugh.

Anyone experienced anything similar?

It's the excuse dickheads make for subtle and unsubtle verbal abuse

I have always had trouble verbalising why I dislike 'banter' and this is it exactly. Thank you.

It seems that the ability to 'take a joke' is held up as a virtue far above all others, and if you 'can't take a joke' there is something wrong with you. I can see that actually the accusation of 'you can't take a joke' really translates as 'I want to be free to verbally abuse you and have you laugh about it'

Yup. If I even heard a bloke refer to 'just banter' I'd be off,

It basically means "I'm going to say something incredible offensive/abusive/cuntish but if you pick me up on it, I'm going to call you a prude/humourless shrew."
It means you're dealing with someone who will walk all over your feelings.

Run far, run fast, for this man has raised the banter flag and on it is written, "twat."

"He thinks it's funny to call me it as he know it winds me up."

I can't tolerate people who do things deliberately to wind others up. It gets tiresome very fast and quite frankly I think it's unkind. I just can't get my head around the mentality.

I totally agree with PPs. Banter is a way of being able to say unkind things and gloss them over as "just having a laugh". I had an ex who used to take the piss out of my appearance and if I got upset would say it's just banter. Twat.

Zaurak, I like the cut of your jib

This is how it starts isn't it, insidious creeping shite. You tolerate his 'harmless' banter, then once you are conditioned to that he will up the ante to something worse. Breaking down your barriers and destroying your self worth piece by piece.

Banter.

A way of being really rude, and then accusing the recipient of having no sense of humour.

It's bollocks. It is the thin end of the abusive wedge, and I am delighted that my dd's school has come down on "banter" with a ton of bricks.

Rings so true! - my stbxh loved his banter calling me biatch etc then saying I had no sense of humour, showed his disrespectfulness more and more over the years; he was emotionally inept! Everyone laughed at him and he was the butt of everyones jokes..still is now we have split, how sad..

If both parties are laughing, it's banter. If one party is hurt, upset or annoyed then it's just verbal cruelty.

I'm afraid I had to teach DP the difference. It's you're laughing alone, you're not being fucking funny.

Is banter a regional or social class thing? I have net come across this communication type in rl.

BTW in Scotland banter isn't a modern buzz word. It means humorous or interesting chat back and forth, and carries no judgement.

Why thank you AF

the Venn diagram of 'men who use banter" and "men I think are decent humans" has no intersection.

Op, you need to think of shit like this as a handy identifier. It's like a nice badge that says "hi, my name is .... And I'm a twat."

Definitely, it's over. It's a massive red flag isn't it. Next! :)

Banter is a 'lad culture' thing
Not common in the men I meet, who tend to be earnest and pc in the main. If you are young and work in finance or something equally male dominated you will probably come across a lot of banter. It's not really a class issue, posh twats can banter as much as working class twats. It's more an insidious, low level misogyny that is common across the whole social strata tbh

i think this kind of 'joke' at the expense of another person is a form of aggression. At first i joined in the joke, with a female 'friend' who did this to me. When the pattern became clear, i disappeared.

I think Anyfucker has nail it.
Big red warning lights OP. Run.

I have no idea what "banter" even is (except in the purely dictionary sense) - it sounds like it's teasing or piss-taking that can slide into bullying.

Anyway once this line has been crossed
"He thinks it's funny to call me it as he know it winds me up"
Then you know you're at the point where you either bin someone off, or accept that they get to use you as a verbal punchbag for the rest of your relationship.