I had an experience similar to this and I regret trying to be diplomatic about it. I think that I'm through with that approach. I was in Austin (Texas) for the weekend visiting family and attending a Flogging Molly concert at Stubb's. I met up with a friend afterwards and we proceeded to hit up a few bars.
We walked into a little dive on 7th street and someone taps me on the shoulder and asks me if I'm from Scotland; the usual type of question. I answer "no" and explain the origin of my initial interest in wearing kilts. You've got your patent response, we all do here.
This happened last week and I forget the exact line of questioning used but to make a long story short...and I am trying to clean up my language, this [female dog] who moved away from Glasgow last year thought that I was a fake for wearing a kilt and only those born in Scotland should be allowed to wear kilts. I employed every once of tact and all of the defenses I've picked up here on the forum but to no avail and I finally realized that I was getting NOWHERE as this elitist, racist individual looked away when she responded. So I walked away after thanking her for her blessing, albeit sarcastically. After all, sarcasm is a second language to me.
But I guess that was a bad experience because in these negative situations I now feel that should abandon a diplomatic approach in lieu of a less friendly response because clearly if they approach me with a negative attitude then there’s no chance whatsoever that I will convince them of my reasoning. Because there’s a huge difference between “I thought only people from Scotland wore kilts” and “I think only people from Scotland should wear kilts”. Don’t we all agree on that?
Well I’ve never wanted to pour a drink on a person more in my life she but was surrounded by guys, I didn’t have a drink yet and my only backup in a barfight was too knackered to be of any assistance. Because if you’ve never been in a fight with a woman, how do you know what you’re really capable of? I may be getting way off base here.
But back to reality. I think that it’s best to employ a diplomatic response in 99.9% of social interactions. In the other percentage, it’s probably best to just go with your instincts because you might regret it later.