I don’t think we ought to normalize or justify bullying as a means to keep people from being annoying — a sentiment that in and of itself could make for a whole article’s worth of conversation — but I do think we should make a habit of politely but directly telling people “hey I didn’t like that”, “that wasn’t funny”, “you are mistaken”, and the like if it’s called for, and more importantly, you should be able to take a “that wasn’t funny” for instance without taking it personally, because protecting a polite harmony where no one can criticize each other, not even politely, is also really, really bad.
When I was still with my emotionally abusive (and I suspect clinically narcissistic) ex partner, they liked to do this thing where they'd try to corner me in front of other people by making a scene over dumb bullshit. This was very much on purpose; especially when I asked them multiple times to come at me in private if there was an issue.
When this happened I started saying "you're making me uncomfortable." "I asked you to talk to me in private if there was an issue." etc. They went from the victim driven to the brink to the one who looked bad (in their own head) real quick. It didn't fix everything of course but I got some mileage out of it while that relationship... wound down.
Call it out.
