"Pushing your buttons"

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That is just plain rude.

Anyone who gets their kicks by pushing yours or anyone else's buttons, is not your friend. That includes family members. Dump the fake friends, and minimize contact with family members who do this.

If those creepy relatives wonder why you have minimized contact, just tell them the truth: That nice people don't go around getting their kicks by pushing people's buttons, and you prefer not to have much to do with people who amuse themselves at other's expense.

Oh, just learn to smile. Smiling can do miracles and wonder. ^_^

No seriously, that's what I do when I noticed someone trying to push my buttons :p hehe

Friends don't deliberately push friends' buttons. I have cut off contact with people who did that, and never once missed them. If all you are to them is something to amuse themselves with by poking at, then they are not worth your time.

THIS..

Thanks for all of the responses.

I'll state again that I don't think my friend was trying to be mean. It seems like he was just making the jokey/sarcastic type remark that friends make to each other sometimes. However, I took it seriously, so tried to defend my position, and he actively participated in the discussion for a while, probably to be nice, but he probably got tired of talking about something he didn't really care about to begin with. It didn't feel mean, and my distress was caused by not recognizing that his original comment had been an obvious joke.

Now, when my family does it (parents and siblings), it feels mean. They do it specifically to get a reaction out of me, whereas I don't think that was my friend's intention. I constantly feel like I'm defending myself around them, and feel picked on and ridiculed. My NT boyfriend says they do it because they don't have any confidence in themselves, because I'm picked on the most for 'being smart' and giving my opinion about movies (which is my special interest and I have a bachelor's degree in film studies).

I've mentioned twice the fact that they pick on me all the time, and it was just ignored. Like, "awww, we love ya."

Whenever someone asks me in RL about something I have a high level of interest in, I always ask them, "Are you really interested in the topic, and if so, how interested are you? Because if you're really interested, I mean really interested in this, I could go on all day, but I'd rather not waste my breath or time if you're not really into it."

If you start that way instead of launching right into an hour long monologue, you'll be surprised how many people will say, "Not that much really." Then you can either drop the subject or give them the shortest answer possible and wait for questions, if the questions come at all.

It puts the proverbial "ball" in their court, putting the responsibility for the length of your reply squarely on their shoulders. If you go on and on, it's their own damned fault, and if they are doing it just to be jerks, it makes that fact far more obvious to you and anyone else watching, exposing what they're really up to.

Buttons? What buttons?

This is just a typical example of the mendacity nts show and try to pass off as not a big thing.

Maybe he likes you, I used to get frazzled pretty easy by similar sorts of things, but people push buttons to get the attention of people they like. I was wearing a vest at work a month ago and a coworker said that I would be ready if the ship went down, since I was wearing my life preserver. At first I felt stupid, like I shouldn't have worn the vest, but then I just realized she was coming up with something to talk about, a way to try and engage me in conversation. A week or so later, she was wearing a leopard print dress, I knew that clothing jokes were ok, so I referred to her as the cat woman, and made a cat noise at her. Then she said "oh, what kind of cat am I, a cougar?" (she's older and attractive) I wasn't making eye contact, but said Yes! That's way better than calling you the cat woman. She started laughing, and then I made eye contact and we chit chatted about something meaningless.

I think that most adults don't purposely say things to make fun of other adults (to their face) unless they think they are joking around with you, or trying to be funny. Pushing your buttons means they are trying to engage you, not enrage you, and long defenses are not needed. Just say something like, well, I love band X, and you can't stand that kind of music, I thought we had something here, but I guess it's all over, Then look at them and smile, make sure they know you are joking. People love that sort of stuff, they usually laugh, or feel more connected to you because now they are competing for your attention, rather than you proving yourself or your point trying to win them over.

So I still wear the vest. It came up again just last week. I was sitting down in a climbing gym, and a woman said something about me wearing my vest inside the gym, and she implied that that was a little weird, though she did not use those words. I looked at the girl, and she looked familiar, but I wasn't sure who she was (I have trouble connecting names and faces). She looked like a girl I know named Laura, and so I said, "do I know you, is your name Laura?" She then jumped into conversation with me, it turns out her sister was Laura. I told her that I am like an orchid, I need to stay warm, so I wear my jacket until my muscles get warmed up. I then forced myself to throw out some small talk, eventually I figured out that she was engaging me because she was interested in meeting me. In most adults, button pushing isn't meant to be hurtful or mean, but rather a means to engage in conversation. My vest must stand out in a crowd, and so people comment on it. That's it.