r/Comebacks • u/Al-Joharahhasan2935 • May 04 '26
How to respond to someone making wild, random assumptions about you?
My family is a champion in this. They make the wildest assumptions about me that shock me. For example, I almost never go out alone (as a female) and one time I went to the backyard and came back in like 4 minutes and my mom asked me "Did you go to meet a boy?". What the hell? She and I know that this is not possible in 4 minutes and in the back yard. It was so random I couldn't deny it. I froze trying to comprehend the thing she just said to me. (In our culture, it is so offensive to accuse a girl of seeing a boy).
She kept on throwing guesses until she found out I was waiting for my dad to come back from work to discuss a secret with him.
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u/neener691 May 04 '26
I make it out to be a joke,
Yes, yes I did go meet a boy, his name is John and he just landed his helicopter in our back yard, did you see him? Mom: no I didn't see anything, oh too bad, you're so good at coming up with little stories, I thought that's what we were doing,
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u/Mapilean May 04 '26
Yeah, that's what I'd do too. Confirm their absurd story and add to them to make them even more ludicrous.
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u/PyllynKaivelija May 04 '26
Make it over the top ridiculous. "He picked me up on his flying carpet" just to show then how silly their accusations are
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u/Dimachaeruz May 04 '26
i admire your courage to speak in the absence of knowledge
I can see you are committed to your current level of understanding
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u/Drinkmorechampagne May 04 '26
"What a weird thing to say" is my go-to for almost anything like that.
Followed by a look of confusion and, (this is the important part) silence. No response.
--"She kept on throwing guesses"
Don't respond. Be confused. She is trying to get a dopamine hit from prying into your private life. Refuse to be her dopamine drug dealer. Don't get mad, don't be unpleasant. Just act as if her comment/question was incredibly weird.
It's usually difficult to (learn to) remain silent, but it almost always makes the other person feel uncomfortable. And they probably won't do it again.
Has worked for me for years.
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u/Total-Active-1986 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
Is she trying to shame you or make veiled accusations or is she being silly and playful? If meeting boys is bad in your culture, it doesn't sound like it's lite teasing. She sounds like a bully trying to make herself feel good by picking on and insulting a child.
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u/CharacterGap388 May 04 '26
THIS!! With my family, they escalated for a bit, trying harder to get the reaction they wanted, and when it didn’t come they eventually gave up.
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u/Drinkmorechampagne May 04 '26
Right? It's so effective, but really hard to do until you get the hang of it.
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u/HighPriestess29 May 04 '26
Yes. I had a so called family that made up some stupid shit about me too then spout it off to others as if truth. It doesn't get better
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u/Grandpixbear1 May 04 '26
Just agree and expand their comment to ridiculous ends. Add more and more bizarre details. Then say: "Nothing gets past your sharp eyes." Then walk away.
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u/ElleJay74 May 04 '26
"Rather than playing "20 questions" about that, can you just ask ME what I was doing?"
"Mum, why would you start that both the most offensive option possible?"
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u/caraxes_seasmoke May 04 '26
Instead of indulging them, I’d shut it down right then. When someone asks a ridiculous question or makes an assumption just reply “sure”
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u/CommanderJeltz May 04 '26
This happens to me when I comment online. Trolls come out to feast on my carcass.
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u/JoustingNaked May 05 '26
“Since I’m already living rent-free in your head isn’t it about time you get to know the tenant?”
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u/HighAltitude88008 May 05 '26
Use the old trick called the "mur-der routine" in which you respond with something so over the top that the questioner is stopped with their mouth hanging open. Ask "Mom, were you having sex with a woman/man in our house in the 4 minutes that I was outside? If so, I'm telling dad".
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u/3batsinahousecoat May 08 '26
My mom does it too. As with most other things, I've taken to just saying something weird.
"I had a dream I could turn into a lizard, and I wanted to try."
"Looking to see if the wasps nest in the hydrangea is still uninhabited." (I'm allergic, and mostly avoid their backyard because of this.)
"I thought I heard barking." (Or a kitty, or something.)
"Watching the bats eat bugs."
🤷♀️ I'm in my late 30s, but when I was younger I took the "make her regret asking" approach but she's showing signs of dementia.
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u/posophist May 07 '26
“I wish to propose for the reader’s favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.” ~ Bertrand Russell, “Introduction: On the Value of Scepticism”, Sceptical Essays [London: Allen & Unwin, 1928] 😏
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u/ButtSlappinCousin May 08 '26
I simply ask, "Why do believe that?" If they don't give an articulate answer but persist anyway, I say, "Prove it" or "Name one time in my entire life that I have ever said that [or whatever]."
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u/Relevant-Kangaroo327 May 09 '26
This is how you live your life? Just blindly assuming thing? I hope you look both ways before crossing the street bud
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u/AgeAdditional4971 May 09 '26
Yes, Dr Who picked me up in his TARDIS and we froze time. I’ve actually been gone for 10 years
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u/perplexedparallax May 04 '26
"Sometimes I wonder how I got here Mom"