For a while I had been having a recurring dream in which I saw myself dressed in a short black dress that I was trying to take off and throw away in the backyard. When I lifted the dress to flip it over my head, it would get stuck around my neck and I just could not get it off, because I was suffocating. And I would always wake up feeling like I was desperately grasping for air. Whether I took a power nap in the afternoon or slept at night, I had the same dream over and over again. When this happens to me, I know that there is a hidden message behind the dream that needs to be discovered. Moreover, I feel that the message has an imminence that must reach me.

I reflected a lot on the symbolism of my dream. A black dress that made me think of something dark, not necessarily of mourning, but of something that, if removed, made the life in me die out; so the dress was vital, it had to stay on, so that I would not run out of air, a necessary element of life. I could not help but think that maybe the dress I was wearing in my dream and which I would never have had the courage to wear in my daily life (because it was too black, too sexy and too short, leaving some parts of my body that I wanted to hide uncovered) was part of me.

According to the law of duality or polarity, every human being has a luminous side and a dark side. It´s what we call yin and yang, lights and shadows, good and bad sides that make a person complete, whole. I must reckon that all my life I have avoided becoming “a bad girl”, showing my dark side – lest I should be judged by others, because of the disgust I felt at being criticized by others; for shame, for fear that I could always become like my mother who was the last person on earth I wanted to resemble – a capricious, mean, eternally dissatisfied woman, the kind of woman that every man chases for the sake of hunting, but eventually comes to hate, because she is diabolical, just like the main female character in the Shakespearean play ”The Taming of the Shrew”.

I wanted to be and strived to become a good, compliant, obedient girl, satisfied with absolutely everything, never complaining about anything, peaceful and pacifying, meek, kind and gentle, tolerant, who does not utter a word when she is given a command. In other words, I had formed an angelic character, erasing and canceling from me the less submissive, more daring, the braver, darker parts. The truth is, in this world, an angelic person does not survive without being the doormat of others. At every step, the flakes and feathers of this angel are plucked, until nothing remains of her plumage. And that's exactly why my mother hated my character. She was nauseated by this too gentle persona in me that was challenging hers.

As I have mentioned before, in other literary contributions of mine, you cannot run from your repressed parts, whether they be luminous or dark. They hunt you down and persecute you until you allow them to make their way back into your life again, to complete and balance you. Otherwise, when you obstinately refuse to let them re-enter your life, they make their way back into it through someone else: through a family member, maybe through your own children who remind you that the part you neglected is demanding its rights, or maybe through your life partner... There are so many viable combinations here. In my case, I was, even unintentionally, the reprimanding element for my mother; through me she was reminded that she had set herself up too much in the position of a shrew, canceling her suave parts. For me it was the same old story, only the other way around: I had completely erased my not so bright side from the map of my life, so as not to end up like my mother who was avoided by my father and other male presences.

I dreaded the opinions and beliefs expressed by men. That was my greatest fear. My father´s validation, my brother´s acceptance, the attention from my male friends and colleagues, all this had made me so afraid of becoming an emotionally solid, courageous woman, who sets boundaries, who is not fooled by everyone, who plays hard to get from time to time and who does not give in and up easily, that I became exactly what condemned me to the greatest suffering, to traumas and abuses of all colors, from early childhood on. I thought I was suffering a meritorious martyrdom. Nothing further from the truth!

It was my marriage that put a definitive end to my lifelong decision to be an angel who behaved more like the goldfish that fulfilled everyone's wishes. And it's a good thing it happened because only when I came at the end of my rope did I realize that this weak-spirited angelic girl (as people used to call me) can also become aggressive when she sees herself threatened, battered, oppressed and lied to in the most disgusting way. When I saw myself thrown in the dumpster like an aborted fetus, that's when the alarm went off and I jumped to my defense, as if my own infant had been taken away from my breast. Yes, it was indeed my inner child I had jumped to defend with my own life who had been stolen from my bosom!

Those of you who had the joy of becoming mothers know much better than I what it means to have your child, who is the extension of your flesh, endangered. To hell with all the kindness and goodness, will you exclaim then, being ready to tear apart anyone who even just slightly overshadows the feeling of security you have, when your child lies peacefully next to you, growing up in serene tranquility. Can you say that putting your foot in the door makes you less good, more inhuman, less angelic? I don't think so! The very fact that you put to work the instinct of survival, of defense – that side of ours that sometimes surfaces with more authority, with vehemence – makes you true, complete and whole women.

The little black dress I decided to take on, even if only once in a while, helped me get out of my toxic marriage, which had caused me a deadly wound. Moreover, thanks to this dress, which I sometimes decided to wear with pride, I managed to get out of various situations of abuse in which I no longer felt at ease, but rather felt I was approaching circumstances again, in which my identity was being put to the wall and from which all my energies were sucked and my resources consumed by emotional vampires who roam about the whole world, no matter which way you would turn to go.

Although I had understood that the little black dress was my dark feminine side, absolutely necessary for a woman, I did not wear it constantly because my natural tendency was to always take refuge in that angelism that invited only abusers and evildoers into my life. I used to undress it, as soon as I took it on, wearing it for just a few moments. Then there came a time when I stopped taking it out of the closet altogether. That is, until the moment this dream of mine kept repeating itself at an alarming rate, literally urging me not to take it dress on, but NOT to TAKE it OFF, that is, to stay dressed in it. Under no circumstances was it to be taken off, but worn as a second skin, as something intrinsic, given to me at birth.

TEQ

After I left the marital home and enrolled in an intense psycho-emotional recovery program, certain repetitive phrases from specialists or colleagues reached my ears: Once you have gone through such abuse, you will go through similar situations again. It's a matter of attraction, so I was also told. But I couldn't accept these statements. It was as if I had been told that I had a stamp on my forehead that said ABUSABLE. What was the mystery? What made me more susceptible to such destructive masculine behaviors? Was I cursed to lead a life, in which I was to walk only among psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, bipolars, schizophrenics and other mentally-ill people? And yet no one was able to give me a logical answer to my questions, fact which not only frustrated me, but also deprived me of absolutely any shred of hope that I, too, would one day reach brighter peaks, from where to enjoy a gentle and warm sunrise after terribly frightening nights; it made me feel condemned to a life of hell, predestined to an endless emotional exile, until death would cut the chain of these wrong patterns. In such cases, you can't help but think it's all your fault. I began to blame myself for the simple fact that I had been born; my own choices no longer mattered because, I was told, they were supposed to stay unchanged, like in the past, in order to fulfill a karmic punishment for god-knows-what unatoned mortal sins from the so-called previous lives I presumably had lived.

And yet my soul would not find peace, just as it would YET find long-sought answers. When I no longer find light in my life, I turn to my only Illuminator, my higher power, because I know that He holds the answers to certain fundamental questions that only He inspires in me, precisely so He can reveal them to me, unveil to me their secret that lies hidden within them.

How can a woman like me (who has gone through abusive and traumatic relationships) avoid crossing paths with an abuser, an energetic and emotional vampire – without wasting too precious time, in which she becomes strongly attached to him, only to discover, with bitterness, that she came across an inconsiderable heart-free man, a killer of souls and hearts? How can a woman like me check if the guy is sane in the mind or not, without even having to go on another date with him, let alone several more? These were my questions I had asked God for many months in a row, hoping from the bottom of my heart that there was a solution for such wounded, battered, thrusted women like me, a solution to help them not fall into the same trap again by coming together with men who, like hyenas, live off the corpses of these poor women that are almost dead inside.

Whoever searches finds. Patience is bitter, says Aristotle, but its fruit is sweet. And good things come to those who wait, says an English proverb. After much breathless and bitter waiting I can say that an answer of great value and significance was revealed to me, which I want to share with you here: YES, there is a short and easy way for a woman to figure out if a man is emotionally healthy and sober and whether she could get closer to him or turn back on her heels and run like a rabbit, way before having invested her feelings in a psycho-emotionally broke man. There is a technique I tested for a long time and which I shared with other women, who followed my advice implementing it by the book; this technique gave exceptional results, empowering those brave women who tried my little experiment. And I call this technique Teasing of Elevated Quality or TEQ.

Of course, before exposing my discovery, I would like to mention that I never talk about things I personally do not test. And the discovery that I will talk about next was tested by me over several weeks, based on a carefully organized case study.

TIC-TEQ

From a very young age, boys grow up teasing each other. It's their natural way of hardening themselves, especially in this century when wars, battles, and duels are no longer a routine, reason for which men would have to take fencing lessons, sword fighting, go to shooting exercises and learn to handle different weapons. Teasing is also their way of feeling like men, of feeling in their own skin, of creating an emotional connection, of forming more or less close friendships with others of their own ilk. It is their way of bonding and kindling connections/brotherhoods, of complimenting each other, validating, appreciating each other, etc. How do I know these things? Because I have been observing them carefully for as long as I can remember.

On top of that, I grew up in a family with two men who teased me non-stop. My father still has this habit of shamelessly teasing me (or pulling my leg, as I like to call his way of approaching me). It is and has always been his way of relating to me. My brother also learned from our father to communicate in this manner. Obviously, for a girl or a woman, who is not familiar with this kind of relating to others, teasing can seem tiring, overwhelming, sometimes even offensive, unnatural, something she would never resort to in order to bridge the gap with a man.

However, it is important to understand the way men think and relate. When a boy falls for a girl, he teases her most of the time. He makes jokes with her or on her account, pulls her hair, her pigtails, trips her when she walks by, touches her bottom, pinches her... Well, you got the idea. Boys try to penetrate the sphere of a girl not according to her rules, they do it according to their own, that is, their naughtier ones. At first glance it might seem that boys would behave like devils, and girls, like angels. If you think that boys don't know, don't understand, don't see, don't intuit what girls feel, that they appear to be insensitive, some urchins incapable of deep emotions, of intimate emotional connections; that they would not be able to make friends with girls, that they run away from commitments, that they are not able to hold on to a relationship with a girl... You are right, it´s only in your mind! Boys, men are more than capable of bonding, cultivating and fighting for a relationship with a girl, with a woman. It's just that their way of acting differs, like heaven and earth, from our style of seeing and solving things.

Both sexes have the same needs and desires. The problem arises when we try to communicate them to each other. Because each category speaks in their own language, a language that cannot be easily interpreted. This article is not intended to teach you how to decipher men. It's not my job or my mission to translate men. It was written only to show you that there really is a simple, easy and uncomplicated, funny and playful, spontaneous and interesting way to test your love prospects and your current partners to see if you could make a good couple with them or not. Under no circumstance can I guarantee a happy ending to those who are already in a relationship. Instead, I can offer the guarantee, especially to those with an anxious attachment style, that there is a The End to a relationship in which you, as women, do not feel at home and safe.

Women with an anxious attachment style fear being rejected, abandoned by their partners, the most. Although they don't do it consciously, these women become clingy – or sticky like octopuses, as I like to call them – begging for attention, validation, encouragement from the man they are with. And I won´t condemn them because a woman with an anxious attachment style bears the stigma of a fragmented relationship with her own mother (!) (the attachment style is formed during the first childhood years, from the mother first). Moreover, if an anxious woman has not been validated either by her daddy or by the male presences in her social sphere at the right time, she will feverishly seek to fill a void, or perhaps a chasm left behind by someone in her life, by replacing it with a man. And when a man pops up in the life of this woman, bombarding her with love, care and attention, she won´t be able to refuse him. It is the natural course of things to want to fill something that is empty and void. And the emotional reservoir of an anxious woman, when empty, must be refilled immediately, otherwise the anxiety of having no one to cling to is terribly painful and oppressive. It´s like almost losing your own mother.

The woman with the anxious attachment style – as I had once been (I'm speaking in the past tense, because the attachment style can truly change and be transformed into a secure and balanced attachment style) – becomes attached immediately. It doesn't take long for her to feel something powerful for a man she spotted just a few hours ago. Unfortunately, this attachment style plays tricks on her to such an extent that it is very difficult for her to think lucidly, more with her head than with her emotions, to first test the ground, to see if the man she likes and who she has become attached to can also offer her a safe haven, in which her emotions are appreciated and reciprocated. And when you don't think lucidly, it's very difficult to discern the intentions of the other. You live in a story, in a fairy tale with a happy ending made up by you, when the reality is completely different, distorted by your own feelings and by the fear that, if you miss the moment, that man will slip through your fingers and you will end up alone, unwanted, unloved, an old spinster, living unhappily ever after.

For a woman with an anxious attachment style, time is very precious. She hears that permanent ticking of her inner biological clock. It doesn't take her long to get obsessed with a man she just met, to direct films about their future together in her own mind, with their children, with the grandchildren they will have, etc. So, if this type of woman always acts out of time, seeming to all men that she is desperate and in a hurry similar to someone who misses a train, scaring the males away and putting them on the run, the solution that would help her out must be a very fast one; otherwise she will plunge into a relationship, in which she will destroy herself emotionally even more.

TEQ is indeed a very practical and fast technique to detect and even diagnose a man with low self-esteem or with a huge lack of emotional sobriety, sobriety that must exist in any psychologically and emotionally healthy man. It is an astonishing technique that brings to light Machiavellian, psychopathic or sociopathic, narcissistic, borderline or bipolar personality types, schizoid patients, and many others, immediately forcing them to reveal themselves and give them a wide berth. How does this work? TEQ works by testing the thickness of the layer of their ego or pride that the men in question have developed. Any low-esteemed man – and it is known for a fact that there are men who seek to enter relationships with women only to feed their own ego, to feed their need for personal validation, to steel value from women – cannot cope with healthy and high-quality teasing. And, it is also known for a fact that a man with a healthy mind and sober heart not only appreciates teasing, but also bounces back the ball to the one who teases him. Moreover, he is able to laugh at himself, he admits his own flaws, accepts them and makes fun of them, unlike men who can't stand if someone, more precisely a woman, injures their pride, doesn't compliment them, doesn't flatter them, and doesn't erect statues of them. The latter category can't stand you making fun of them, no matter how innocent these jokes might be. Such men are unable to make fun of themselves; on the contrary, they always speak very highly of themselves, as if they were presenting their CV in front of an audience. They praise their own performances and trophies, not tolerating their pride to be pricked in the slightest, because they wither away like some fragile mimosas.

There are two ways a man from the dark triad (narcissistic, Machiavellian, psycho-sociopathic) reacts to teasing. Either 1. He does not respond to it and ignores you completely, playing the angry who arrogates to himself the right to be the offended party from whom you must, by all means, ask for forgiveness and make reparation for the damage caused to his personal pride, or 2. Responds aggressively (verbally or physically, or even both). I think the second option is essential for women who have already been through abuse in any kind of relationship with a man (father, brother, partner, spouse, etc.). It´s the red flag that tells you loud and clear that you must stay away from this type of men who are not men in the fullness of the term explained by the dictionary. If a man does not feel like a man, unless he can manipulate, harm, control or abuse a woman, he cannot be called a man. Period. And such specimens should not populate the social sphere of a healthy woman, who respects and loves herself at her true value, let alone be in the company of a woman who is going through recovery from an abusive situationship with such men. No man is a match for a woman who takes care and loves her own heart!

I will demonstrate the above lines through my own experience. Although I grew up in a household with two men who constantly teased me, during my engagement to my ex-husband I was never able to tease him, not even very lightly. That's because, first of all, I had an anxious attachment style and I didn't want to hurt my ex-husband's feelings. It was a true mortal sin in my eyes to do such a thing, thus most likely pushing him away from me. Does this pattern ring a bell?

After we got married, when I tried a few times to make harmless jokes and tease him, I witnessed disproportionate reactions from him, exaggeratedly aggressive and violent, as a result of which I suffered injuries that required emergency hospital care and I was emotionally punished in various ways. You will tell me: If you saw these things, why didn't you leave him, why didn't you take a stand, why didn't you save yourself? In all sincerity I am telling you that, at the time, I did not know the things I know today. In good faith I believed that a marriage had to take place under the auspices of those rigors, that I had indeed made a mistake and that it was my duty to make things right again, which is why I did not leave until my soul was clinically dead. I thought I had to improve, to be more angelic (!), to be softer, more tender, more understanding, to keep my mouth shut, to refrain from so many things... My fear of losing my ex-husband – a man suffering from a mental illness I knew nothing about when I got married – was coupled with a constant sense of guilt, common in women with an anxious attachment style. If something went wrong in the relationship, I blamed only myself for that, and worked tirelessly to repair or rebuild from scratch what had not even been fated to stand anyway.

Of course, looking back today at what happened and what I experienced, I can only sigh sadly, but I no longer revolt against it and I have fully accepted that we trade suffering for wisdom. The wisdom to know ourselves, to love ourselves, to respect ourselves and to treat ourselves at our true value. Especially when our partner or our neighbor never gives us value. But for this knowledge I had to pay a very high price. I had to go through the mill to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't regret it because I loved. Although I lost, I lived fully. Love harbors no regrets and no grudges. In love you only find light, forgiveness, acceptance, healing. Peace and tranquility.

The woman with the anxious attachment style is very vulnerable to certain negative behaviors. They say, better not to know in advance. But I tell you that it is better to be told in advance, so that you know and avoid such situations like the plague. Because certain behaviors and personality types can never change. If the anxious woman is, perhaps, the most idealistic of all, hoping that, with her unbridled love, she will be able to change the course of history, change her man, perhaps she should be shaken a little and shown the naked truth, from the very beginning, before making up Hollywood stories in her head. She will make them anyway, no doubt about it! However, the more rational decisions she makes, the easier it will be for her to get out of that sick pattern of returning to the Walt Disney story, “The Beauty and the Beast”, in which she, as a woman, will try to humanize the one who behaves, even if only subtly, like a beast.

There are certain very treacherous signs, so well crafted by certain men, especially by today´s narcissists (and not only, mind you!), which, if not highlighted in bright colors, we women risk overlooking them and finding ourselves in the eye of the storm, when it is, perhaps, already too late. I am telling you, it is very difficult to put the pieces of a broken heart back together. You don't believe me? See for yourselves!

Here are some of those signs that I just want to list, not detail (literature in the field is as much as it fits), so that you can recognize men who want to control and manipulate you:

1. He acts very aggressively, is insistent, imposing – even when he is courting you (which does not make him boring at all!)
2. He does not like spontaneity (this deprives him of control), cheerfulness, jokes, teasing (which brings out taboo subjects), playfulness (he becomes indisposed)
3. He pressures you to move quickly in the relationship (to immediately move to the next level: to move in together, to have an exclusive relationship, to get married quickly, etc.)
4. He is obsessively jealous and hypervigilant (the woman's freedom is already regulated by her partner)
5. In constant need of being in touch with you (phone, texting, emails, dates)
6. He needs to know where and with whom you are at all times
7. He makes you an agenda (all of your time is at his disposal)
8. He always blames his ex or exes (he plays the righteous person who avoids showing himself as he is, with the good but especially with the bad side, even after spending a little longer with you in the relationship)
9. Road rage (and not only, but especially in absolutely trivial situations – a sign of disinhibition)
10. If you were to describe him, you would say that he is intense/fiery/burning
11. He seems to like creating much drama and chaos, confusion and ambiguity around him
12. He speaks ill of the people you care about and of those who love him
13. Contradictory desires
14. He easily endears himself to you (and those around you), he gets under your skin easily
15. Ambivalent behavior (angel at daytime, devil at night; hot and cold; virtuous and sinful)
16. Pops up unannounced
17. Secretive

        The anxious woman will feel very flattered by such reactions and behaviors. She will not think that behind them hides a personality with issues, with a negative, capricious, moody temperament, a man obsessed with control and manipulation. The dark triad mentioned a little earlier comprises those three personality types that feed on manipulation and total control of the victim. Make no mistake, they are among us, some of them even live in the same house with us, and we don't even realize it. Recently I have noticed a tidal wave of such types of men with sick personalities, whose victims are more and more women of all ages and races.

If you want to preserve your life, your heart, your mental health, yours and that of those around you, I recommend using the TEQ technique. TEQ does not mean being mean, sarcastic, offensive, insulting, disgusting, devilish, a shrew of a woman. It just means poking the stick through the fence a little, to arouse the bear and find the length of its foot and how thick its skin is. After all, it is the man, not the woman, who must be able to suffer scratches, get dirty, roll in the mud, be poked, fight and defend. If not him, who? Not the woman! Should she be the shield that cushions the blows? I say a categorical NO and take full responsibility for it.

Through TEQ we do not challenge anyone to a duel between the sexes, to show how strong we are as women, to prove that no man can keep us underfoot. That's not the point here. By using TEQ we only want to separate those men who are healthy and who really have a place in the sphere of our existence from those who behave more like emotional and energetic leeches.

To be more specific, I will give some examples of TEQ found in my conversations with subjects selected for my case study. I will also post other examples provided by other women who have put this technique into practice. For this case study I decided to create an account on a social media platform, where I could have access to dialogues with men of all ages and beliefs, from all nations. I mention that TEQ is very useful, both online and in real life (especially in the latter).

Here are some examples of TEQ applied by me and other women, with visible success in detecting good or not so good personalities:

Ex. 1:

Guy: I really like your profile. I'd like us to chat. What do you say?

Me: Oh, yeah?  Go figure, I like absolutely nothing about your profile. (Hahaha)

Guy: Hahaha (laughs with lots of emojis). You're really funny.

The conversation continued on a cheerful, playful, spontaneous note. The subject selected by me did not back down from teasing; in fact he even opened up to me and confessed to me more intimate things about himself.

Ex. 2: After a few emails exchanged between me and a somewhat serious subject, although he responded more or less to my teasing, I decided to write him a message, in which I told him, in all honesty, that I did not find him attractive, which is why I did not want to continue corresponding with him.

Guy: Still, what score do I get in terms of physical beauty. Be honest.

Me: Honestly?

Guy: Yeah.

Me: Ok. A 5, no more.

Guy: F*** you! Do you think you're better? Idiot! No one has ever given me a five!!!

Me: I think the time has come for you to receive this score. There´s always a first for everything. Be grateful it´s a passing score! Haha

Comments are superfluous here (LOL). Apparently this subject wanted very much a woman who gave him a Magna cum laude.

Ex. 3:

Guy: You're really interesting! I love your humor.

Me: Yeah? Well, you're not interesting at all! You're downright boring. (hahaha). I like my humor too. LOL

Guy: Hahaha, you're bold. I like you. Let's go out.

At this point, the subject gave me an address to meet up for a coffee in the city. He asked me out within just ten minutes from the start of our online chat.

Ex. 4:

Me: Does that smile in your profile pic somehow compensate for your monotonous personality? Hahaha

Guy: LOL. Sadly, yes. I'm only interesting in bed, unfortunately.

Me: Why unfortunately? LOL

Guy: I´m just saying… Idk

(If you paid attention, only from this brief exchange of lines, you can find out what qualities the above individual has, possibly what hidden agenda and interests he possesses.)

Ex. 5:

Me: Wow, I looove your shoe color! It's exactly the color of my puppy's vomit! LOL

Guy: LMFAO. OmG, my mother was right when she told me that the color would stand out. How proud she´ll be of my choice. Hahaha!

Another subject, who resorted to love-bombing with a friend of mine, when she gave no more vital signs for a few hours, before she arrived home that night, he had sent her 38 emails (he blew up her inbox). In one of them, our subject, a very pedantic guy who was extremely cautious in his profile bio (he ticked all the boxes of a perfect man), wrote the following:

Guy: Email me right away, I´m in jail.

In the next email, which was sent only 4 minutes away from the one above, he wrote:

Guy: I decided to delete my email ad. Email me right now, if not, I will block you and won´t give you my email ad. You wanted this!!!

No less than two minutes after this email, another one was sent saying:

Guy: I called the police and gave them your email ad, to search you. I told them you threatened to kill me and my family. Good luck!

After another two minutes, we find the following message:

Guy: What the f*** are you doing? Why won´t you reply?

After only a minute:

Guy: Bitch! Never write again!

No comment.

Ex. 6:

Me: It´s been six days and you still haven´t asked for my address. Apparently you are a very calculated and patient serial killer. LOL

Guy: That´s true. LOL. I calculate everything in detail. Patience brings bountiful fruit. LOL

Me: Many victims so far?

Guy: Hmmm… innumerable. Hahaha!

Me: Should I start taking self-defense classes, to feel safe?

Guy: Yeah, I think you should. LOL, now, on a more serious note, are you a certified clown? You are very funny!

Me: Yup! Wanna see my certificate? LOL

Guy: Show it to me tonight. If you like, we can meet up and have dinner together. 😊 You are going to dine with a high-calibre psycho. LOL

Ex. 7:

I applied the same technique above (from example 6) on a man who seemed very honest. His reaction, which I had somehow inferred, was far from being reasonable.

Guy: It´s not nice to talk like that. You can insult people.

Me: Oh, poor you! Barely touched you and you already withered, mimosa? LOL

Guy: You really need help. Go see a therapist and stop playing the psycho. Women like you who think they are independent and smart are lunatics!

After he wrote almost the same words in the comment section on my profile page, he was immediately banned by the admin team. LOL

Ex.8:

Guy: When was the last time you had sex?

Me: When was the last time you shit your pants? LOL

The guy above was way too bold and curious for the first two lines upon our acquaintance.

I had countless meetups, online chats and phone dialogues with men, which gave me the possibility of carefully studying their various reactions, when they are lightly and playfully teased. I say lightly and playfully because, after each teasing, I thought it appropriate to use emojis to show that I was joking; other times I added interjections or inserted hahaha or LOL or I mentioned that what I said was simply a joke, nothing serious. Why did I do this, especially online? To avoid being perceived as offensive, sarcastic, insulting, or that I wanted to appear superior to the men I was talking to.

Obviously, TEQ is not a mockery, it does not mean being critical, sarcastic, and malevolent. As you have seen, emotionally healthy men reacted nicely, playfully to the teasing and banter. Some even made fun of themselves, which, in just a few words, says a lot about the individuals´ temperament and personality.

Observations

During the case study I had the pleasure of noticing some things that reinforced many of my claims about the high-quality teasing and banter coming from a woman.

First of all, TEQ not only separated healthy subjects from those with problems, highlighting very accurately the traits of dark personalities, but also emphasized that men subjected to teasing and banter, who responded positively to the challenge, were open to communicating on an emotional level about topics that men normally don´t address, even though these topics should be addressed from the very beginning upon closer acquaintance. In conversations without teasing or banter (for online chats), men and their interlocutors reach a point of no return, when trying to move from greetings to questions, such as: What do you do? What do you like doing in your spare time? Do you like this or that? Through TEQ, the men were the ones to open up about the topics women should be able to easily address in any dialogue with a man, from the very start.

TEQ also encouraged talking about taboo topics that in the first period of a relationship with a man are not put on the table and which, especially for an anxious woman, are of crucial importance, for the simple fact that, thus, the woman can figure out if the man in question intends having a long-term relationship, short-term relationship with benefits and no responsibilities (sex and nothing more), if he has serious thoughts about the future (marriage, children, stable life) or if there is someone else in the background (a wife, a serious girlfriend), important information some men generally omit.

Moreover, I noticed that TEQ creates long-lasting bonds, arousing the interest of men in the women who implemented this technique. These men complimented the spontaneity, intelligence, presence of mind and liveliness of the women who experimented with TEQ. Not only that, but they felt at ease because they were spoken to in their own language used among themselves since childhood. They felt understood, deciphered, accepted, and appreciated.

Last but not least, men did not feel the pressure that oftentimes weighs on them when in the presence of an anxious woman, who is too clingy, who seeks, even without declaring it loud and clear, the attention, validation, and appreciation of men. TEQ gives women the opportunity to prove to men exactly the opposite: namely that we do not beg for their validation, we do not feverishly seek their good opinion on what we say and do; through TEQ we show that we are not afraid of male authorities, of poking and scratching men gently, to see what they are capable of and how they will react. Through TEQ we show them that we are not afraid of their rejection or them leaving us, because, first of all, we are not afraid to prick their pride.

Finally, I asked married women also to apply the TEQ technique. They reported a much healthier and more open relationship with their husbands. Their husbands seem to have changed their daily behavior toward their wives and children for the better. Therefore, TEQ can be used not only in relationships with men in general, but also as a playful method to reawaken the passion between spouses.

I tell women who live a permanent state of anxiety and fear of male authorities that, if you have not used TEQ yet and you have always avoided taking a wrong step, saying something out of place, joking at the expense of men, you need to try this technique! The more you avoid it, the more you need to regain your confidence, your courage, to re-empower yourself. TEQ proves that a woman is not afraid to say what´s on her mind, what bothers her, what makes her uncomfortable or scared, what makes her happy and satisfied, she declines her needs and sets boundaries, all this in a playful way that no sane man can or will be upset about. More so, the hunter in him feels honored to fulfill the wishes of the woman with whom he relates, considering her wishes as a trophy, which he is invited to fight for and conquer. The monotony many relationships get stuck in is replaced by a lot of interest and mystery, the latter one being also an incentive for the constantly bored man.

Unlike the anxious attachment style that men immediately sniff and avoid – they feel suffocated by it – TEQ is highly appreciated by men, being also the business card of the woman who assigns value to herself, especially when a man forgets to value her. Teasing is of Elevated Quality for two reasons: 1. It never resorts to offenses or insults and 2. The woman, who applies TEQ, demonstrates her cleverness, the sharpness of her mind, her intelligence and insight, her humor, reason, logic and wittiness.

Conclusions

If, at first, I told myself I would never be able to speak on this note in dialogues with men, being downright afraid to open my mouth, after my very first attempt, the fear was halved. Then it kept shrinking, until I didn't feel it anymore. Through practice I gained confidence, more self-esteem, total disinterest in good or bad opinions coming from male representatives; questions like “What will they say about me? Will they say I'm a mean and vile girl? That I'm no longer a good girl?” didn't take root in my mind anymore. And that's only because I had the courage not to take off the black dress, not to shun my dark feminine side, which is part of me and which I neither can, nor do I want to give up on.

To those trying out TEQ, I bid you good luck! I do not guarantee that the first comer will respond positively to the challenge, just as I cannot assure you that the one who will respond positively is also your future husband and the father of your children. But I can guarantee you that, if applied well, TEQ can show you the “bad guys”, the negative characters about to break into your lives; it can spare you from a bunch of suffering with someone like them, but also save you many wrinkles because TEQ is a liberating and humorous technique that will help you relax in your dialogues with the stronger sex. 😉

P.S. 1: Since I have been applying the TEQ technique (wearing the little black dress), I no longer dream of trying to undress it.

P.S. 2: Under no circumstance is this article dedicated to people suffering from the Stockholm syndrome (the victims who return to their aggressors)! It all depends on you, if you want this change in your lives. I do not want to want on your behalf something, which only you can decide: to face your aggressors or leave them for good. It is neither an article that produces magic in women's lives, make no mistake about it! But it can illuminate some darker corners of a (possible) relationship, and it can smooth the wrinkles and crinkles on the foreheads of so many fearful women worried about their emotional safety.

P.S. 3: TEQ can also be applied by men in their relationships with women who show the traits of a dark and evil personality.