You can leave a conversation that keeps circling back to tearing you down.

Some conversations have a groove in them, and the groove runs right through you. It can take a while to spot, because each joke on its own seems small and leaving feels dramatic. But a pattern is information, and if every version of the evening ends with you as the punchline, staying is not loyalty and going is not oversensitivity.

Give it one redirect. Change the subject, and if it loops back within a few minutes, you have your answer. Then leaving can be very boring: say you are heading out, and head out, with no reason anyone has to approve.