Dealing with askhole + one-upper friend

[ulrich]

I have a childhood friend who I love most of the time can be a great pal but he constantly abuses a particular one-upping technique.

The technique is a mix of askholing and one-upping.

It goes like this:

Friend: What do you think about X?
Me: Well, I think you should do XYZ
Friend: No, that would never work / That’s definitely a dumb idea because XXX / Then why did you do stupid thing X?

Basically he asks for your opinion on something, then when you deliver a thoughtful answer he lambasts it or brings up a situation when you made a mistake.
At that point you are forced to either:
a) Try to explain yourself
b) Ignore the remark (while feeling frustrated)
c) Try to one up him in return

None of those, I would call a success.

Obviously, this is a technique to extract value from you and then disregard it as a way to raise his status.

I don’t think it’s such a big deal because my other friends know he is and don’t take him very seriously but it’s very frustrating for me, personally.

Do you know of any technique to turn this back on him or make him stop?

Thanks!!

 

[Curwen]

Do you know of any technique to turn this back on him or make him stop?

Yes, a few come to mind.

- give him an obviously absurd answer. If he keeps asking, just keep going with absurdity and make it fun for you
- give him the proper answer, keep it short. When he whines about it, say (while staying cool) something like
+ why the hell did you ask me then?
+ well don't do it then, I don't care
+ okay
- say you have no idea about that
- tell him, "you usually don't like my advice so I don't know why you're asking". If he keeps asking, just do your thing and don't put in big effort.

He is extracting value, like you said, in the form of effort. My examples above are low effort and you can make them fun for you. Fun, because then it's not really effort from you, you're just shooting the shit and having fun. If he then starts to seriously talk about why you are suddenly being like that, you can consider briefly explaining the problem to him. Because now he has put in some effort and actually wants something from you, so you are still "winning" if you only put in a little.

Probably best not to be nasty to him, but just play with it. It's unfortunate when you have to do something like this with friends, but it happens.

Some people respond well when you sincerely bring up a problem in their behavior... but suspect not most people.

 

[POB]

What do you think about X?
- Honestly, X is of no interest to me..rather talk about something more fun
- No idea
- I'm hungry, let's eat something
- long silent pause, let him ask again...then half joking: "Dude, what's up with you and your one liners....sheesh, my pussy is getting dry right now"
- Why you ask? Just curious about why you would bring that up...

 

[theReason]

This thread gave a lot of techniques on that recently.
https://www.skilledseducer.com/thre...nstuck-from-a-dead-end-thought-pattern.29239/

 

[ulrich]

Thank you @Curwen, @POB. This has given me several ideas.
I’ll adapt some of these.

I’ll check the thread right away @theReason

 

[James Cruse]

I made a post about how to deal with this here in the Techniques section:


Neutralising Bad Faith Questioners (Dominance Displays)