Anyone can find themselves in a situation where they are verbally attacked and are simply speechless. Instead of getting angry about your silence later, you can learn repartee!
What does repartee mean?
Being quick-witted means finding the right words quickly in unforeseen situations instead of saying nothing or stammering away. Most people probably know the annoyance of hearing a remark or reproach and being so upset that they don’t say anything at first. Later, when you are calm, you usually think of many things you could have said back. But unfortunately only later.
Quick-wittedness is a very positive quality that can give you self-confidence and impress people. It can help you get ahead, both among friends and at work. Being able to counter someone verbally does not necessarily mean that you become offensive. It’s more a matter of returning the other person’s comment in a witty way.
A well-known example:
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is reported to have once said to Lady Astor in response to her comment, “If I were your wife, I’d put poison in your coffee,” “If I were your husband, I’d drink it.”
I just can’t think of anything!
If you are verbally exposed or insulted, you get into a stressful situation. You become loose, tense up and block yourself. It’s similar to an exam, when you knew everything beforehand, and during schoolwork you have a total blackout. That’s why you often don’t think of the right verbal counter-attack until later.
How do you learn to be quick-witted?
Basically, repartee is something you can train, like the rules of communication between, for example, classmates, parents and children or students and teachers. Everyone talks differently.
To help you, we have put together a few ideas on how to keep the upper hand in a conversation:
- Turn awkward situations into funny ones: Turning awkward remarks into laughs quickly relaxes situations and no one feels offended. Example: You are at a party and a guest says, for all to hear, that the color of your top clashes with that of your trousers. A response with a smirk on your lips might be, “If I’m not quick-witted, at least my robe is.”
- Lead the conversation: Imagine you are asked an awkward question. Dare to ask it once and only answer it briefly. Then switch to a topic that is more comfortable for you. Example: Someone asks you if you still don’t have a boyfriend. If the question makes you uncomfortable, answer casually that you don’t have a partner and then go on to talk about your brilliant weekend, thus directing the conversation to a more pleasant topic.
- Exaggerations often lead to the desired goal: If, for example, someone thinks you only have bad grades, you can reply with a deadpan and sad face how right they are and that it will be really hard work to persuade the gym teacher to give you a bad grade.
- Counterattack: We first mentioned this tactic when we gave the example of Churchill. Another example: Someone asks you what happened to your hair. You could counter that fortunately the same thing did not happen to it as happened to the other person’s hair.
- General accusations, such as boys can’t cook or girls are bad at math, can often be played back. For example, if someone says to you that you are only good at English because all girls are good at English, you can reply that all boys are good at math – since they are not good at math, they must be a girl.
TIP:
Often a simple solution when you don’t have the right words is to simply ignore what is being said with a meaningful, strong look.
Get into a routine
You get repartee by practicing it. This doesn’t mean that you go around all the time trying to verbally counter someone who only meant well, but to keep your eyes and ears open and do a bit of brain jogging. Whether it’s books, films, series, wall comments, chats, friends, parents, etc., you always hear people saying brilliant things and verbally countering them. It is often worthwhile to take a closer look at these situations, because you learn from what you have seen, heard and read, and you get many ideas and a certain routine.
For further help and support — Speak with a licensed therapist today.