Viciously Teasing Each Other

We’ve been doing it for decades

When I was at MIT, we put up a sign outside one of our suites — Dante’s Inferno: Abandon All Hope. That actually could have been a great meme for MIT in general at various points.

When I graduated from college, therefore, I was in a place that appreciated dark humor, bad puns, and the type of teasing that siblings (in particular brothers) routinely indulge in.

Four of us became friends — two men and two women. And we were all in cahoots, playing pranks on each other, making tasteless jokes that had people staring at us — how are those people even talking to each other? How are they even still friends?

Yet we’ve been friends now since 1989.

And the friendships have only deepened.

We are no longer friends. We are brothers and sisters and that’s how we refer to each other. We have chosen who our real families are. And we’ve survived some real crucibles of emotion that forced us to confront our demons.

We still call each other on a regular basis.

We still rememeber birthdays and holidays.

We still visit each other or go on trips together or spend hours on the phone gossiping.