We start exchanging witty comebacks as early as kindergarten. Who hasn't heard or thrown out a "Whoever smelt it dealt it" or a "I know you are but what am I?" on the playground themselves? Knowing how to clap back is a necessary social skill sometimes that people can get better at with time and practice.
Child adolescent and adult psychiatrist Suzanne Bender, M.D. writes that we need to teach our children how to stand up to bullies. But, with comebacks, we should never teach them to make their clapbacks personal. "Comment on the comment, not the person," Bender emphasizes.
Being able to clap back at someone requires mental and verbal agility. And unless a person has stand-up comedian levels of timing and wit, it's better to practice by role-playing. That way, we can prepare a comeback in advance and learn to hold direct eye contact and an assertive tone of voice for face-to-face interactions.
Bender also claims that, for children, it's sometimes effective to at least think about the comeback. "The power of fighting back, even in one's own head, provides a sense of agency," she writes. Perhaps that can apply to adults too: clapping back at rude strangers might not be necessary, after all, if we just think about what we would say to them.
Unfortunately, we can rarely come up with a good comeback in the moment. How many times have you lay wide awake at night when just the perfect witty comeback comes to you?
Abigail Paul, who teaches theater improv techniques, told the BBC that the secret to a good comeback is listening to what the other person is saying. People think faster than others speak, so, according to her, we have extra time to think of a witty clapback even before someone finishes their sentence.
#10 I Would Ask If Anyone Saw This, But I Doubt Charlotte Boi Himself Noticed
"Most of us don't listen to the whole message, we are just waiting to make our own points. There is no magic bullet to getting better at listening besides practice," Abigail Paul explained to the BBC. She suggests a game of one-word volleyball as practice: you build a story with each person contributing only one word at a time. It prompts us to listen and be quick on our feet with a response.
Most of the witty responses in this thread are directed at hypocritical people, who once called out someone for doing the exact same thing they're doing now. Hypocrisy is an interesting thing; sometimes we ourselves might not realize that we're doing it. Psychologists explain that hypocrisy comes from our flawed human nature. We sometimes don't make the best judgment and can be motivated by our emotions rather than logic.
The experts at Straight Talk Counseling note that hypocritical people are often characterized by an inflated ego and have a sense of self-righteousness. The inability to be humble also plagues those who have hypocritical tendencies. But the reason we sometimes act hypocritical is usually out of fear and low self-esteem.
