Creating Tension for the Mischievous

Conflict in life is inevitable. Most people interested in the subject spend their energy on resolution. The mischievous spend theirs somewhere else: the controlled creation of conflict. It's a skill every rascal has mastered — Ferris Bueller, Oscar Wilde, the class clown who is happy to fuck around and find out.

Tension into relief

There may be no better example of that alchemy — turning a moment of conflict into a moment of relief — than Tommy (Joe Pesci) and Henry (Ray Liotta) in Goodfellas:

"You're really funny…really funny." — Henry
"What do you mean, I'm funny?" — Tommy
"You know that story — it's funny. You're a funny guy." — Henry
"Funny how? What's funny about it?... Funny like I'm a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? How am I funny? How the fuck am I funny? Tell me what's funny." — Tommy

One question from Pesci, loaded with implication, and the whole dynamic between them snaps into focus. It knocks Henry out of being a passive observer and puts him dead center in the ring.

As strange as it sounds, we all want that feeling — not the tension itself, but the release that follows it. Pleasure and pain share overlapping brain regions; as Nature Magazine puts it, there's "a common neurobiology for pain and pleasure." You can't get the thrill without a little danger, and you never laugh harder than when laughing was the last thing you anticipated.

Pulling this off takes real study. You need to read the social situation and the environment it's taking place in, understand the general archetype of the person you're dealing with while leaving room for exceptions. Then there's you — your tone, your gaze and your read on how the other person is perceiving you in real time. Get all of it right, and you've handed someone a moment unlike the one before and they'll thank you for it.