The Ultimate Comeback to Any Insult - Jefferson Fisher

Fisher argues that the instinct to immediately counter an insult is what the aggressor is counting on. By not “catching” the thrown words, you break the script. The silence gives you time to decide how to proceed and forces the other person to experience the full weight of what they said without the drama of your reaction. He stresses that it is not about ignoring the insult but about not receiving it – “I’m not taking it. I don’t have to pick it up. That’s not mine.” The pause is a non-verbal statement that you are above being yanked around. This technique also creates an opportunity for the offender to retract or soften their comment, because the silence makes their cruelty unmistakable.

Fisher says that when you ask someone to repeat an insult, you strip it of its spontaneity. The insulter must now re-produce their cruelty from memory, which often feels repulsive even to them. The silence beforehand has already defused the emotional charge, so the request to repeat lands as an objective challenge rather than an emotional plea. Typically, instead of repeating, they will try to justify or walk it back, which itself is a win because it shows they recognise the remark was out of line. He compares it to asking a girl out again after she said she didn’t hear – you don’t want the cheese, you just want out of the trap. If they do repeat it verbatim, you maintain your composure and simply say “I thought so,” which lets them own the insult while you refuse to catch it.

Fisher recommends this approach because it goes straight to the heart: why did they really say it? The power lies in forcing the other person to reflect on their motive publicly. When you ask “Did you mean for that to embarrass me?” you are not accusing; you are inviting reflection. This often makes them feel seen — as in, you saw the ugliness beneath the words, which is too uncomfortable to face. He gives a personal example of his wife asking him “Did you mean for that to sound short?” after a quick text reply. That simple question allowed him to clarify that he was just in a hurry, disarming a potential argument and reinforcing understanding. He extends the concept to text messages, where we tend to read everything negatively by default, so asking about intent also corrects for our own bias.

Fisher draws on his experience as a trial lawyer deposing people he knows are lying. He often has the evidence in his pocket but doesn’t want to show it yet. When a witness says something blatantly false, instead of calling them a liar, he says something like, “I hear you telling me this, but something’s missing for me. I’m missing where you’re getting to that. Can you help me understand?” Because the person has already committed to their lie, they have to invent a bridge that further exposes them. The same approach works with insults: “You say I’m the worst thing — I need you to say that again because something’s missing; it’s not hitting me the same way you want it to hit me.” This reframes the insult as a failure of delivery, not a reflection on you, and forces the insulter to either clarify or abandon the attack.

Fisher frames this as an “invited steelman.” Instead of you, the listener, constructing the best version of their argument (the classic steelman), you invite the other person to do that work for your own statement. This turns them into a temporary collaborator in clarifying meaning. He notes that if they then answer, “Okay, so I heard you say X, Y, Z,” and they’ve mischaracterised it, you can casually say, “Ah, okay. So, no, not quite. What I was trying to say was…” This diffuses tension because you’re correcting the record, not fighting. In the insult context, this technique is similar to the repeat request but works preventatively – you stop insulting misinterpretations before they solidify.

Fisher explains that we’re socialised to feel we automatically have to “catch” an insult because it’s thrown at us, much like returning a serve in tennis or volleyball. He breaks that metaphor: the words exist independently, and by simply letting them “fall to the table” in silence, you refuse to engage the game. The silence creates a vacuum that forces the other person to sit with their own words, which is far more uncomfortable for them than it is for you. This disruption of the expected script is what makes the technique so disarming, especially against people who rely on strong emotional reactions to control the interaction.

Fisher suggests that after a tense exchange, you can say, “What are you hearing me say?” or “What did you just hear me say?” This is an invitation to steelman your own position. Instead of you doing the work of building their argument up, you’re handing them a clean mirror and asking them to reflect back what they perceived. If they misrepresent you, you can gently correct: “No, not quite. What I was trying to say was…” This technique does two things: it gives you a chance to clarify without defensiveness, and it forces the other person to take responsibility for any distortion. Fisher notes that with insults, it’s similar – asking someone to repeat their insult makes them hold their ugliness up to the light, which is why they often backtrack or soften what they said.