When I was twelve, a boy grabbed Mike's hat, gave it to me and said, "Mike wants to go steady with you." I put Mike's hat on and refused to give it back and waltzed around the playground "bragging" that I was Mike's girlfriend.
Net results: Mike beat the daylights out of the jerk who was doing this to us every day for the next week. Mike, who was pounding lumps because he was mortified to be associated with me, had to come crawling to me to get me to stop saying I was his girlfriend and get his hat back.
When I was 16, Jim decided to pull a similar stunt in the high school cafeteria. "My friend wants to go out with you."
I immediately responded with, "Gee. That's so sweet that you would help your friend like that. But I'd much rather go out with YOU!" Jaw bounces off table.
Jim tries again the next day. "My FRIEND - NOT ME - wants to go out with you." I respond by sitting down with a dreamy eyed experssion on my face, looking at the friend, and say, "Gee, I'm sorry. But you see, even though Jim is too loyal a friend to tell you, HE is the one I like." The friend starts laughing hysterically at Jim. I turn to Jim, who is turning beet red, and say, "It's okay now. Steve understands how special it is between us."
The teasing stopped. At the end of the year, Jim wrote a really nice note in my yearbook about how I was the most incredible girl he had ever me, and how he admired me.
These kind of things work best if you plan them. If you have a retort ready, it is easy to deliver something classy rather than crude. The following are rehearsable responses to carry at all times:
To general, unsolicited comments:
"I hope you're not talking to me ... and so do you!" Delivered with a cold, cutting gaze, no-nonsense voice.
To unsolicited diet advice:
"Mom? (Dad?) Is that you?" Look the person right through the eyes as if trying to see the inside of their skull and check if they are the reincarnation of that lon-lost nagging parent.
To "you have such a pretty face, if only ..."
"Why would I want my body to match your narrow mind?"
To physical confrontation:
"Back off or I will squish you like the maggot you are." This plays on their fear that we will crush them by sitting on them.
To "... ugly fat..."
"The only ugly fat in this room is in your head."
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