The story told at every reunion eventually becomes harder to correct than to endure.

A story that gets retold at every gathering hardens. Corrections become disruptive, the person it is about is expected to play along, and after enough repetitions it is genuinely easier to sit through it than to say it was not like that. The account survives because objecting has become socially costly.

If a family story is at somebody’s expense, notice whether they have simply stopped resisting it. And if you are the subject of one, you are allowed to say quietly that you would rather not, once, without making a scene. Most families adjust when asked directly.