I’m an 18 year-old male, on winter break from my first quarter at college. This afternoon I and three other 18-year-old males (friends from my old highschool) were occupying two benches in a mall downtown.
A man walks out of a nearby bar and starts smoking a cigarette. A few minutes go by and he says to us, “Look at you people! You’ve got the best seats in the whole fucking mall and you’re just sitting there!” And he imitates our vacuous stares. His point was that we were not girl-watching as well as we should be, and he begins to show us how to do it correctly. “It’s ok,” he says, “I’m 43 years old and look at me!” And he ogles a 15-year-old girl passing by. “It’s illegal, but you can still look!” he says. So the four of us sit there fairly amused about how a middle-aged guy is acting like an immature teenager, as he continues offering us words of wisdom such as, “Don’t go for the degrees! I’m a bartender, that’s where all the action is.”
And then he looks right at me. “Oh, my God, you’re a virgin!” he tells me, “I can see it in your expression.” Then he jokes about finding me a prostitute as I feign amusement and the other three guys laugh. I was considerably offended by his rude, overt treatment of me, especially because I could not deny his uncanny ability to correctly identify the (relatively) “uninitiated” among us four. We all knew he was right, and it made me uncomfortable (I know there’s nothing wrong with virginity, it’s just that this guy made it seem so outrageously pathetic of me, and I was in the presence of three friends for whom sexual conquest is among the most desirable and laudable feats, albeit typical for our gender and age.) I was leaning forward with my hands clasped, not saying a word. Then he imitated my posture and admonished me for it, and instructed me instead to lean back and spread one arm out. But I didn’t budge and merely stared at him indignantly. He cursed my lack of receptiveness and told me to turn my head to the right and look at a girl who had supposedly been looking our way for quite some time, but still I just stared at him, and again he imitated me. (Of anything I did during this episode, I am most proud of myself here when I refuse to sit how he wants me to and look where he wants me to. I was happy to openly ignore the instructions of a disrespectful boor, and rather silently glare at him.) Then a couple of the guy’s friends arrived and his attention was diverted. Soon the four of us went on our way.
So basically my response to his insults was utter silence, and I’m convinced that was probably the best thing to do. There are many ways to justify it, and the guy was so full of himself and condescending toward us that nothing less than a shocking riposte would have pierced his overbearing, tough-guy demeanor. But that’s where I need your help. Inspired by this thread about the sassy Walmart fashion-critic, I’d like to know if you can think up any appropriate responses to this jerk. I know that someone as low-down as he doesn’t even deserve a response, and I got some satisfaction out of my self-control (or, who am I kidding? I wouldn’t have known what to say anyway), but how could I have verbally defended my honor?