The hardest thing is this:
Someone comes up and asks you a question. If it were just a question, no problem. But they are asking you a question with a judgment already in mind, so it’s actually a challenge and a provocation.
Basically, no matter how you answer the question, it doesn’t matter because they’re not actually asking a question, they are expressing judgment in rhetorical form.
And because of that and the fixed nature of where they’re coming from, any “answer” you have to their question, they will view it as you trying to justify whatever it is they don’t agree with, and they will take this “justification” as evidence that they are right, because anything that is “true” shouldn’t have to be justified.
It’s a no-win situation. They are basically putting you in a position where they are asking you to justify something, just to turn around and criticize the act of “justification.”
What’s frustrating is they never see how the person is not reacting defensively independently, but they have invited this person to feel defensive, and then they trap the person in a corner for feeling defensive. Why set people up like that? Nothing good comes out of it. What do you get out of trying to make someone feel insecure and small?