“I’m just joking” is what people say when they want to hurt you with a return policy.

A joke can be a delivery system with a built-in retreat. The remark lands, and if you react the frame changes so the problem becomes your sensitivity rather than the content, which leaves no version of the conversation you can win. Humor is not the issue; the exit clause is.

Respond to what was said rather than to the packaging, in a flat tone and without heat. Asking someone to repeat it usually does more than arguing. And if the same person needs that exit clause regularly, the pattern is the message, not any individual line.