I’ll bet that most of you have, on occasion, said or written something that pissed someone off, and the pissed-off individual spat this at you: “I guess you think you’re smart.” Or “I guess you think you’re funny.” My tendency (usually repressed) is to want to snark off when someone gives me the smart/funny challenge. And, of course, the more sarcastic my response is, the more annoyed the other person will become.
Is there any way to give a sincere, thoughtful response to this that doesn’t dig the hole deeper? If someone is offended by what I’ve said, I usually feel bad and want to make amends. But saying “I was just trying to make a joke” doesn’t usually help. “No, I don’t think I’m smart” would be a lie. Quite frankly, I do think I’m smart and funny, at least some of the time.
I am sure I’ll encounter this again, and I’d love to have a way to handle it gracefully.
“I’m not actually smart. You just make me look good.”
See if they get it.
Oh, GRACEFULLY.
I don’t know if there’s a good way to handle that without either being a jerk or just ignoring. Personally, I think comments like that deserve sarcastic replies.
We have a customer at work that any time you try to correct him/explain the rules/whatever, always responds “I refuse to argue with someone with your IQ.” Since my interactions with him have never had him looking like any thing less than a grade A asshole, I’m pretty sure that when he actually says it to me, I’ll respond with something smart assy like “Nothing above a 50 IQ, eh?” or worse, much worse.
He did get laughed at by the table I dealt to him the other day, after he had been knocked out of his 3rd tournament in an hour. Evidently, he thinks he can outsmart everyone and lost that bet 3x that I saw. (For those of you that don’t know, in order to get knocked out of 3 tournaments in less than an hour, means that you are playing, really, really, really mindbogglingly stupid. Our players start with $1500 and blinds start at $25-50 and the blinds go up every 15 minutes, doing that 3x in an hour shows that you don’t have the sense god gave little green apples)
I’m always befuddled by people who talk about being smart as a bad thing. Perhaps that is the route you want to take. “I bet you think you are smart, don’t ya?” responded with “If I wasn’t, I’d do my best to fix it pretty darn quick.” (and silently, “why don’t you do the same, dumbass.”)
The few times I got that, I usually was able to point out that we happened to be talking about my field of expertise. So, “well, I’m not necessarily smart, but I happen to be an engineer/a chemist/from Spain/(whatever applies).”
Old joke: An American and a Japanese are on Safari in Africa when a giant lioness, a bit far off but menacing, starts running their way. American starts running off, while the Japanese pulls out a pair of running shoes and starts replacing his heavy boots. American stops for a moment and asks the Japanese sarcastically “you think with these shoes you’ll outrun the lion?” To which the Japanese guy reponds “no, but I’ll outrun you”
My instinctive response is to turn my withering glare of ridicule upon the moron uttering such a statement. I actually have to make a conscious effort not to do it.
Yeah, I don’t do graceful rejoinders. It’s either irritated silence or biting sarcasm.
The way I see it, if you believe what you say, then f@#$ if the other person is offended. Go ahead and be snarky as hell. And then come and tell us so we can laugh.
Better an ugly truth then a pretty lie, I say.
Of course, OTOH, if you comments are truly offensive to your sensiblities as well, then there’s no grace at all. You say “Sorry” and let that be that.