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Comment by lazerwalker | Hacker News Reader

You already play this with your friends on a daily basis. Haven't you ever teased a friend, or pretended something they did was silly? You're lowering their status and raising yours, if only temporarily and in the spirit of fun.

Keith Johnstone even argues that this sort of status game is the sign of a close friendship, implying that the two of you are comfortable enough with the status dynamics of your relationship to play around with them.

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Doesn't a real friendship imply equal status? That equal status is always there, the teasing is thanks to it being equal, not fluctuating. At most you could say you are pretending to be lower or higher than each other, but acknowledging that is in fact pretending.

You missed the point. You're comfortable enough with your equal status to openly deflate their status, _because_ you both know it doesn't mean anything. Fair trade/permission giving: later they can tease you and lower your status.

Then real dicks use that sort of friendship to only lower the status of their friends, which is why we call them dicks.

Nah, I didn't miss the point, I got it square on. I just wanted to make the point about equality, which the post I replied to doesn't: "comfortable enough with the status dynamics of your relationship" doesn't necessarily indicate equality.

If you are male then yes. Pretty much all male bonding is about temporarily raising or lowering yours or your friends status, then laughing at the absurdity at what you've just done. Male groups typically have a leader (or "alpha") and the rest are equals.

If you are female then there is a harder edge to this game. It's played far more subtly, but the changes in status are real and permanent and no-one's laughing afterwards. Female groups have very strict pecking orders.

I am a female and I am only friends with equals, both men and women.

If you're doing it in the spirit of fun (which I assume to be mutual), this means both of you know how the game works (or that such a game exists).

What I meant was, don't play this with friends who are unaware of this game. If you're starting to put you're friends into social experiments without their previous agreement I'd call you a sociopath.

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