Develop a biting wit. If you can turn their jokes around and verbally rape your friends with epic comebacks you'll be able to turn a not so great situation into a positive one. I know the kinda group you're talking about. These were the people I hung out with, and still hang out with. We always tried to spread the picking on between each other evenly, and I found it very fun.
Good luck friend.
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I see two scenarios with this.
Your friends are cunts, time to find a higher quality of friend.
Or
2. You're that guy that let's everything under his skin, so it's almost impossible to not raz on you. If that's the case, I've always liked a motto we used in sales, 'if you can't flee, flow".
Make self deprecating comments, laugh, don't play defense, go with it, and don't give em more ammo.
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Things you should do
Laugh with them if its not serious
Agree and amplify it AKA return with a response that goes in to more detail than they did, make it comically exaggerated so the original statement seems like nothing interesting (“you’re short!” “i stay like this so I can still get free kids meals”)
roast them back with something similar if you know the person. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT bring up something completely irrelevant, it looks like you are deflecting. If they insult you for your intelligence, stay within that realm, anything to do with appearance, stay within that too
Things you shouldn’t do
Be silent. IDK what your friend is on but if someone insults you and you stay silent it seems as if you’re sulking or actually internalizing their opinion of you. You can only stay silent if their social status is below you so it doesn’t even dignify a response (like a random troll online or a drunk homeless guy). If it’s a peer, this style doesn’t work
Be defensive or deny it. Do not deny what someone says unless they are serious about it (keep stating the same thing multiple times). People will insult you to gauge your response more often than they are interested in the validity of their original statement. When you get defensive over something you give it credit that it was ever in the realm of possibility.
Think- if somebody tells you something ridiculous “are black holes really just God’s butthole?” you wouldn’t reply with “no, because scientists have proven... etc.” (unless you have Asperger’s, which isn’t an insult but people with Asperger’s actually can only take statements at their technical interpretation, as if they’re being constantly quizzed). That’s the same energy you keep when people insult you, as if it was an asinine thing to say in the first place. Don’t ever reply with explanations or defend yourself.
Most importantly, if you truly want to know how to respond correctly, you need to stop giving a shit about what others think of you. You can take all these tips to learn how to fake it, but until you realize that nobody’s opinion of you actually matters, you will never be able to internally handle getting insulted.
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Another trick is to ask the person to repeat themselves. It never hits the same the 2nd time, and it loses its luster if the intended target didn't even hear it in the first place.
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A big part of making any sort of come back is tapping into the brains ability to make connections to literally anything. & I don’t mean like weak sauce shit. I mean having the ability to somehow connect a person & their actions/abilities/traits/etc, to mating meerkats.
Getting into it with someone is a good excuse to expose how you feel about them. Things you notice that don’t readily stick out to most.
Another way to be a shitty person… err I mean, have a good comeback, is having the mentality that you’re better than them in (whatever) aspect. Using the “at least I’m not—-“ or “at least I don’t—-“ type of remarks.
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I actually read some books on communication some years ago, and one thing I stumbled upon often is that the best way to come back is actually taking the other person's rude statement and bringing it to an absurd level, so kind of like exaggerating the offense. In my opinion, not only it makes you look confident about yourself, but also it is a nice display of humor which is a very likable trait. For example, I have a pretty big nose. And I hear things like "wow you got a big nose" from friends, and exaggerating this would be something like "be careful about what you have in mind, my nose is so big that I actually can even smell your thoughts" or "yes especially trees have a lot to do when I breathe, I take a lot of oxygen and give them a lot of carbon dioxide back". Or "your hair looks so bad", you could say something like "believe me, it won't get any better". This style of humor might not suit everyone, but it just defuses the attack in my opinion because you show that what has been said does not affect you at all. Another thing is (which is a bit harder to think of spontaneously) that you can point out the positive in a negative comment. So for example if someone says "your hair looks so bad", an answer would be like "I don't think I'd look any better without hair". As I mentioned, this might be a bit hard to come up with at the moment, so if you hear something rude often, then you can think of a response to it prior when you have time to think about it so you can just shoot it out. What I definitely would not do is being rude too, not only it is unkind, imo it also displays a level of insecurity. What makes a better comeback is composure, kindness, humor.
Hope my answer helped :)
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Pat their back, say "Whatever makes you feel better, bud!", then walk away.
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I have a couple things off the top of my head:
Watch sitcoms, a lot of the comebacks that I’ve fallen back on when I didn’t have anything to say have come from shows like that 70’s show, Psych, community etc.
Think ahead for specifics, if you have something about yourself that might get roasted, prepare a pretty good universal comeback, if there is someone who’s prone to roasting you, think about comebacks specific to them
When in doubt, intentionally say something super lame, (ex. In response to “those shoes suck ass”, “more like shmose shmoes shmuck shmass”) grin, and stick your hand palm up for a high five from someone else closest to you. It’s a stupid bit, but once your friends are used to it, everyone will go along.
The same can be done for self deprecating humor. (Ex. Jokes on you, I’m always stupid) you have to lean into it hard, because if people don’t see that it’s satire, you’ll just look like a loser
NO MATTER WHAT, don’t take it seriously, because no matter which comeback is better, the guy who’s having a good time and enjoying himself will always look like he won
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This is from a recent Reddit thread. When you are arguing about something and you know you are right and the other person is wrong:
"Well, I would agree with you but then we'd both be wrong."
I used it at poker night a few weeks ago and everyone loved it...except the person I used it on. :)
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I think it comes with not being rusty and staying relevant. That means practice talking often, don’t avoid it. Know how to articulate what you know. Keep up to date on what’s going on in the world.
The people that are making funny remarks aren’t just mentally stationary upon hearing something. They are engaged in the conversation. Get your foot in the door, even if it’s something little. That way you can steer the conversation towards the things that you find funny too.
My final thought off the top of my head would be not have unreal expectations for how funny you are supposed to be. Almost no comedy tv show accurately depicts genuine conversation. I think this can make it seem like you are supposed to be spitting jokes every time you see someone. Those jokes are written by teams of comedians so it’s obviously unrealistic
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