Notifiblog: How Suff Works Thursday!

I think I found a good one this week:  How Verbal Self-Defense Works.  We've all been there:  we feel slighted by something someone says and immediately feel the need to retaliate.  It's a human thing that is rooted in something competetive that has kept our species going this long.
I think this isn't about how to out-insult your verbal opponent...
There are three parts to verbal self-defense.  Cool!  Three paragraphs make a Notifiblog post!

Understand what's really going on.  The amygdala (brain bit) goes to work whenever we feel threatened.  Even by verbal threats.

Listen instead of leaping to conclusions.  When someone says something to us, we tend to believe it's true before we sort out the real logic.  And there we get into, "He's just saying that because he's (fill in the blank with something catty)."  Instead, we really need to overcome that knee-jerk reaction and think about the context and logic of what is said.

Know how to respond.  We humans make three major mistakes more often than not:

1. Attacking back - "How DARE you say that to me!"
2. Pleading - "I can't BELIEVE you're going to start that again when you KNOW how much work I have to do today!"
3. Debating - "There are three reasons why what you say is ridiculous. First..."

And then the article references a web page that is no longer updated but still looks pretty cool:  http://www.adrr.com/aa/

In brief (definitely read the HSW article!), when someone poses an offensive question, feel free to bore 'em to death.  Or, you can toss 'em a vague platititude, "Not being able to win a battle of wits IS annoying." It's not so personal.  Except when I do it. (wink)  And then there's my personal favorite strategy:  kick 'em with the Cute.