When someone hurts your feelings, try not to think about how you can hurt them back.
Try to consider what in them is hurt that would cause them to do such a thing.
Perhaps this person is in pain and, not knowing how to process or heal that pain, is taking it out on others.
Ask yourself what part, if any, you may have played in the circumstances that led up to your hurt feelings.
You are not necessarily to blame, but you may have done something, even unknowingly, that caused them to retaliate.
Think about how, in the past, you have behaved toward them or someone else as they have toward you.
Another possibility is that this behavior that you find offensive may be a reflection of some aspect of your character that you are in denial of.
You may simply be hurt by something in them that you do not like about yourself.
If all of these possibilities are exhausted and you are still at a loss, it is possible that they are just cruel, uncaring, and unkind.
The point is that compassion, not retaliation, should be your first strategy for dealing with hurt feelings.
Compassion is the path to healing
Retaliation perpetuates the cycle of pain.
Meditations on God 