I'll fill you in on a little secret. You can never win a fight by fighting back. You can only hope to win by dancing. Say it's the bottom of the ninth, the quarterback, Enrique Iglesias throws the puck down the table and he's about to score the winning basket of insults. What can you do? Can you mount a successful counterassault? Can you fire at him with your best insults? Can you find words so strong that he will crumble at the very sound of those words? Probably not. And if you are the type of person who would let this tomfoolery go on for more than the first exchange, you will probably crumble underneath the weight of your offender's assaults. So you can't outflank him. You can't out-offend him. So what can you do? You can outwit the guy.
Play the game. You can't win if you don't play. And honestly, half the game is knowing that it's a game. The rest will come naturally. Let me give you a shining example.
To set the scene, a young Jewish lad is on a bus from New York to Washington, D.C. passing through New Jersey. The bus stops in the middle of the Garden State at an obligatory gas station to let the patrons use the bathroom or buy some snacks.
So the young man approaches the counter with a bottle of water and a smile, knowing that he is about to replenish his body with the elixir of life. As he puts the soon-to-be-his bottle on the counter to begin the transaction, the proprietor gives him a smug look and says, "Don't Jew me out on those last few cents, ya kike!"
PAUSE AND REFLECT
What are this boy's options. Let's lay them out:
A. Be upset and cry
B. Be upset but hold in his emotions
C. Respond with wit and maintain composure.
For shits and giggles, let's try and play out each scenario.
SCENARIO A:
The young man gets offended and shows the shopkeep that he has won. He has subsequently lost the respect of all the people around him (He probably would care if he got so upset) and then the business owner would feel free to do so to other people.
SCENARIO B:
The young man would just smile, pay for his merchandise and walk away to the bus, only to have it torture him for the rest of the day. The shopkeep gains no satisfaction, but neither does the young man.
SCENARIO C:
The young man registers the insult and quickly replies with "I't all there. You can count it if you'd like, or do you need a calculator?" At this point, for a brief moment, time would simply pause for the not-so-gentlemanly gentleman behind the counter. He would need to regroup, as his assault was not equipped for retaliation. It's like the Winter War when the Russians invaded Finland. They didn't know what hit them. They did not anticipate the White Death's envolvement and that is why they lost. So our young hero retaliates with a real Simo Häyhä (Consult Wikipedia) of a comeback.
I think that it is fair to say that option C is the best one. Why?
Confusion on the part of the store owner [√]
Satisfaction [√]
Greater self confidence [√]
A totally bitchin' story to tell your buddies [√]
FINAL ANALYSIS:
Our young hero played the game, and beat the game by turning the tables. That's all you have to do. You don't fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. That probably sounded much more insightful in my head than it does on here.
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