If you’re a woman (especially between 20 and 35), chances are people have asked you these questions.

Let’s go beyond trying to analyze why and how can people let themselves be so inconsiderate, insensitive and downright mean to ask questions they would not want to answer themselves. They probably can’t help it. The interesting thing is: how to respond appropriately? Is there a funny, witty and smart way of a comeback? According to Amanda Marcotte, the author of It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments, there is. If someone asks “are you planning on having a baby anytime soon?”, you just need to say: “I can’t.” And how is this not a (bit cruel) lie? “Here me out.” begins Amanda. “You really can’t have a baby anytime soon. After all, you’re not pregnant, are you? So having a baby is, at bare minimum, nine and a half months away, and that’s if you just so happen to run right home to find an erection-spotting man who doesn’t mind skipping the condom and you’re currently ovulating. So you quite literally can’t have a baby anytime soon, depending on your definition of “soon.” Not a lie at all.