An Awkward Comment: How to respond better than Harnaaz Sandhu?

Steve Harvey asked Harnaaz Sandhu to mimic an animal sound at the Miss Universe contest while other contestants were asked more graceful questions. She dealt it with aplomb and behaved sportingly while Harvey was widely criticised for such gross request.

Both at the workplace and in social circles we encounter awkward comments and stay clueless about responding to them gracefully. At times we ignore that by staying silent but that doesn’t help all the time. If our reaction is knee-jerk, many would consider that unkindly.?

Let’s explore how can you deal with awkward or rude comments and requests.

Take an Awkward Pause: An reflex response has a very high likelihood to go wrong. Take a pause to interpret what the other person meant. While the pause will offer you additional time to calibrate your response, it will also offer an opportunity to your opponent to clarify or course-correct. Also, use this pause to regulate your negative emotion and prepare yourself for a detached response.

Ask for a slow repetition: If you observe the intention could be to deliberately put you down, ask them to repeat it slowly. You may use a phrase like:

‘I could not get that. Could you repeat that for me slowly?’

While asking this keep both your pace and tone even to display detachment.

There are very high chances that they would get defensive and change the topic. If that doesn’t happen, follow the next step.

Expose the Agenda with a clarifying question: Very often pathologically rude people get away by making awkward comments because others get defensive or ignore their behaviour. When you expose their agenda, that would be a surprise and put them in a defensive position. You can use phrases like:

‘I feel your intention is to trigger me…. is that right?’

‘How do you expect me to respond to this rude comment?’

‘Your comment is made in a bad taste, would you really like me to respond?

‘I see you are trying to upset me, do you agree?’

Offer a Safe Exit: By now, your opponent would be looking for a safe exit, offer that to him by switching the topic of conversation. Even if you see the other person determined with agenda and looking for new ways to defend, changing the topic will help to direct the interaction in your favour.

The other way to have a pleasant closing is by admiring your opponent and trivialising the incident as an aberration. You may use phrases like:

‘I truly admire your graceful personality and I consider this an exception.’

’This is very unusual of you. I believe your intention is never wrong.’

’This is not you whom I have known.’

While Sandhu felt she had no choice as her stake was very high at the pageant, you can show up more powerfully while dealing with rude comments.