I once hated a friends boyfriend- he was a one-upper, everything you had done, he had done better, and you might as well not have bothered. He also loved to patronise, his favourite phrase was ‘if that works for you I guess, I personally have higher standards.’
Me and my then-boyfriend thoroughly disliked him and my friend knew it. She invited us over for drinks, I declined, she said her boyfriend wasn’t going to be there, I accepted. We show up and guess what... she told me at the time it was a change of plans, but later said she lied to get me there.
Anyway. I’m very frustrated, and while we are alone, my boyfriend boyfriend and I agreed to start counting out the dickish behaviour out loud. Anytime friends boyfriend (FB) said something twattish, one of us would say ‘that’s two’ or ‘that’s three’ to the other. The longer this went on, the funnier it got (as far as we were concerned) and the more obvious it became what we were counting. By the time we hit fourteen we were both stifling giggles and the wind was right out of FB’s sails. He was suitably mollified and pretty much stopped talking.
We both felt a bit stupid on the way home, and wondered if we’d taken it too far (we were early twenties) but it was a reaction to my friend tricking us into it, and I couldn’t bring myself to feel too bad. Within a few months, friend and FB split anyway and that was it.
Two years later I ran into FB in a bar and he apologised for being a twat! Said he had a lot of insecurity issues that manifested in showing off, and he hadn’t realised how badly it came across until that night. I told him I felt it was very immature of me, but he said it opened his eyes. He was actually a pretty nice guy!
Anyway, long winded way of saying, maybe you could try the counting game! Depends how at the end of your tether you are though, as I really did feel like a bit of a dick after, but it worked a treat.