Once, in between doing my squats at the gym, I listened to an interview with a prison guard who also moonlights as a standup comic. (Wait, it’s relevant.)
The prison guard, who is a male of the species, also guards female prisoners.
One time, in close quarters, the male prison guard had to confront a female prisoner, who was pregnant, and who was in a section of the prison where she was not allowed to be.
As he moved past the female prisoner, she spun around, and quarters being close, and she being pregnant, her belly hit his belly. Or vice versa. One thing is clear:
The female prisoner flared up.
“You just hit my belly!” she said.
Prison guards I guess have a good sense for when fights are about to break out. “In my head,” says the prison guard, “I went, uh-oh. I think I might be fighting this lady.”
But, like I told you, the prison guard also moonlights as a standup comic.
“My mind’s always going,” he says. ” Like, I really have some funny things that go through my head.”
Most of the time, he filters himself from saying those things. This time, he chose not to filter anything.
So instead of trying to appease the woman… instead of trying to prove it was her belly that hit his belly, and not the other way around… instead of invoking his authority and telling her to shut up and get in line, the prison guard said:
“If you come at me, I’m fighting both of you.”
The female prisoner was stunned. “What do you mean?”
“You and your baby.”
The female prisoner couldn’t believe it. “That’s fucked up,” she said.
“I’m just telling you straight. And when I write the report, I’m writing it as a two on one. And so I’m putting in that report. I felt the baby try to kick me through your belly.”
The female prisoner shook her head, chuckled a bit, and walked off. “You’re fucked up,” she said.
“We’re all fucked up in here,” the prison guard replied.
And so the fight was off.
If you wanna find out the subtle and invisible psychology of what happened to make this forming fight dissolve, and how you can do the same, even if your mind is not “always going” and you don’t find yourself very quick-witted or funny on your feet, then go read Commandment VI of my 10 Commandments of Con Men etc. book.
I name and explain both the technique this standup prison guard was using, and explain the underlying reason it works, so you can make it work for you as well, whenever somebody accuses, mocks or criticizes you. If you’re curious: