BENGALURU: Have you ever watched a world wrestling show? For years, participants in the format have been putting up quite a spectacular show with so many of them becoming a celebrity in their own right. For the ’90s kids, this was part and parcel of their growing up, with the moves and actions by these people holding the attention of generations of youngsters.
If you were a fan of those shows, you would recognise that though the fighting looks and feels absolutely dangerous, and on occasion it really is very risky, most times the participants do not seem too harmed by them. They manage to come back for the next week or month. The time in the ring itself was only one part of the spectacle – a lot of the engagement happens well before the fight in the build up to it, in the trash talking that the players indulge in, their costumes and even their very names itself. Everything is built up for one and only one reason – entertainment.
Sometimes in love and in relationships, we do similar things. People in relationships play each other up, talk trash about each other and seemingly go at each other’s throats but are unharmed by it. Their relationship seems to go on without much of a hitch, even though the audience might have thought for a while that this was it, the relationship was over and they should be picking sides already and changing how they are with the couple. The patterns are known to each other, the jabs and counter jabs, the slam downs and rest of it are playing to a script, and it is evident to the people in the relationship and those who are used to it, though a newcomer might be quite shocked by how raw and rough it might seem.
The play fight is part and parcel of most relationships. We know there’s no harm intended and that the play is more for show and just spending time with each other, something like how puppies, lion cubs, tiger cubs and others do – a rough and tumble that can look like the real thing with the growls, the barred teeth, the nips and bites, but doesn’t cross a line.
When people in relationships do the same thing, it is often about testing out boundaries, reaffirming how we stand with each other, maybe even mocking each other a little, challenging one’s beliefs and an invitation to go a bit further.
It can be healthy fun, but just like the world wrestling shows, it can get really dangerous very quickly. If we end up touching some real vulnerabilities, or throwing in some actually hurtful barbs and punches, it can quickly escalate. A good play fight is something that one develops over time, with increasing trust and respect for each other. It is not something one can take for granted, and certainly not too early. Just like in world wrestling shows, the risk of real damage is always there, and perhaps that’s what makes it that much more enticing.
(The author is a counsellor with InnerSight).