Briefly, on other people's opinions

They say you cannot change the way other people behavior, you can only change your reaction to it. Sort of a choose-your-battles kind of thing. Example:

Last year someone I know made a very generalized derogatory comment about my taste in music. We all know that to be the highest of falsities. In the two seconds before I responded, my brain managed to process the following retorts:

1. "Nuh-uh. Your music is stupid."
2. "Ok."

Option #1 is, for most people I think, the knee-jerk reaction. I really did/do think this person's taste in music is utterly horrendous. However, by going with #1, I would be validating his opinion - if what he said really hurt my feelings, it must be because I (a) respect him or (b) respect his taste in music. Which I don't.

I realized that stooping to his level with some vague sophomoric putdown would only add fuel to the fire, and I didn't really feel like getting into it especially since he wouldn't know good music if it knocked him upside the head with a brick.

What I'm trying to get at is by choosing Option #2, I stopped the would-be argument in its tracks and put him in his place. He didn't expect me to just... take it. I took it because I didn't care. I know that I have the awesomest awesome music collection in the history of awesome, and no matter what he said to me, that wasn't going to change. He believes he's got a lot of good music too, but that doesn't threaten me because it doesn't affect me. He's welcome to listen to his music so long as I don't have to listen to it and vice versa.