I was always the cocky/funny/teasing type when I was younger, but in my late teens I worked hard to hide that part of myself after life handed me some hardships, and I became hyper-aware of people's opinions of me. Since I've stopped searching for validation from others and being a pleaser, that natural side has fully reawakened, especially with women, and I now treat them like little sisters.

I came across a post on negging on one of the forums here and most of the replies were disgusted women. The problem is, I don't think most of the understand that they love being teased. Teasing/joking sarcastically is so natural for me, it's literally how I attracted the girls I did throughout life (without realizing why), but now I've come across this term "negging", and it sounds pretty shitty. I definitely have a habit of teasing a little too much, and get called rude and mean a lot, though I recognize that 90% of the time I get called that it's because I'm not validating a girl just because she expects to be validated, but I really don't want to be outwardly manipulative. I can tell some girls automatically label me as a "player" and roll their eyes.

From what I've found, to paraphrase, "negging is tearing down someone's character to make them insecure about themselves, thus giving the other party power over them". When I tease girls, I try to make it about something they've said, clothes they wear, choices they've made--basically anything they had control over--and not something that they can't control, like their looks or something might be insecure about, such as skin or weight, but sometimes I might cross the line.

For example, I know that calling a girl "my little drug dealer" all night long after learning she's a pharmacist is purely teasing, and they often love that shit. But sometimes I'll make fun of a girl's heritage, "oh, spanish and a redhead, you must be crazy," or height, "I'd love to play you in basketball, I'd get easy dunks all game", but I feel as though they understand I'm just messing around. "I used to teach college, I don't think you would have passed my class," feels like a neg, but I'm also testing to see if they're confident in their intelligence, which I find attractive.

So, where is the line between negging and teasing? Intention? Part of me feels like girls neg all the time when they shit test.