In 95% of these situations, I don’t have any kind of witty response to make. I just have a way of looking up at them with a flat expression, long enough that they can see I’ve heard and understood what they told me, and then I go back to what I was doing before.
For me, the point isn’t so much to get a certain response or perception out of the other person. It’s mainly to communicate a simple message: “it’s going to take you more energy to provoke me than it’s worth.” And then to communicate to myself the message: “You’re in control of your actions and attention, not them.”
That might serve your purposes, and is at least better than simply giving into the speaker’s frame. But responding in a way that’s purely defensive, even if you do it in a disaffected way, means you can’t frame yourself as a polite socially-savvy party guest who’s in open communication with the whole group. The speaker may be intending to battle you away from that frame and monopolize it for themselves.
There are trade offs in everything! This is just a personal strategy that works for me. Fortunately, social interactions of this kind are rare enough, and predictable enough, that I haven’t noticed myself suffering from the effects you describe :)
In 95% of these situations, I don’t have any kind of witty response to make. I just have a way of looking up at them with a flat expression, long enough that they can see I’ve heard and understood what they told me, and then I go back to what I was doing before.
For me, the point isn’t so much to get a certain response or perception out of the other person. It’s mainly to communicate a simple message: “it’s going to take you more energy to provoke me than it’s worth.” And then to communicate to myself the message: “You’re in control of your actions and attention, not them.”
That might serve your purposes, and is at least better than simply giving into the speaker’s frame. But responding in a way that’s purely defensive, even if you do it in a disaffected way, means you can’t frame yourself as a polite socially-savvy party guest who’s in open communication with the whole group. The speaker may be intending to battle you away from that frame and monopolize it for themselves.
There are trade offs in everything! This is just a personal strategy that works for me. Fortunately, social interactions of this kind are rare enough, and predictable enough, that I haven’t noticed myself suffering from the effects you describe :)