I don’t want to minimize what may very well be a sexist pattern. Touching someone after they’ve told you to stop is not okay. But it may be relevant to consider how often men poke at other men until they get angry and then think it’s funny.

One of my male friends does this a lot, both to women and to men. The idea is that if someone is easily provoked to excessive anger, it’s funny. Though laughing in this case does indicate they don’t take the other person’s anger seriously or consider it justified.

If a man feels small when his anger is laughed at, the idea is that he is acting small. The idea is he shouldn’t have been so sensitive and shouldn’t take himself so seriously. If he’s then complaining about “feeling small” over nothing, according to male social rules, you can laugh at that too. I personally like this system a lot as it serves to diffuse conflicts. It’s also a way of testing character. It is also a means of potentially strengthening character among your friends by getting them to toughen up. Laughter also gives the angry person the ability to laugh at themselves and save face. It also provides a means to not feel responsible/guilty or threatened when someone gets unreasonably angry at you.

While justified anger can be threatening, indicative of a problem in the relationship, or even a personal insult, unjustified anger means nothing negative about the person it is directed at or about the relationship as a whole. One of my friends gets too worked up during arguments and starts yelling. It is easier for me to continue engaging and standing up for my side of I view his anger as a hilarious symptom of his poor emotional regulation rather than as any threat to me or our friendship.

Here’s an example. One time a male friend got on my laptop and started messaging two guys who were texting me to test them. I can’t remember what exactly he was saying, but he was messing with them a bit. One of them got provoked to the point of irrational anger and started name-calling. The other one took everything in stride and fired back with humor. My friend eventually told him, “Hey man, I’m actually Jessica’s friend, but you are a cool dude.” He told me to stop talking to the other one and that I should have higher standards. While certainly there are a number of ethical problems with this entire scenario, the results of this “test” were spot on.

I think with guys, the more controlled you are in how you express your anger, the more seriously they take it. Women may be at a disadvantage here because we are smaller and have higher voices. In order for anger to be taken seriously, maybe it needs a threatening component. Women are not physically threatening to men so that element is absent. Warning of reasonable consequences in a very calm, firm, deep (as you can manage), loud (but not yelling) voice seems to be most effective for dealing with the most difficult people.