On a deep psychological level, insults that really bother us are one's we believe are true. If you call Shaq shorty, it makes no difference to him. If you call a guy 5-7 and a half shorty, he will be furious as only people insecure about their height would even add the half inch to their stature. Same with people that violently respond to being called gay. They usually have pent up homosexual tendencies they have worked so hard to cover up and when called gay they explode with "Me? Gay..are you kidding? A stud like me?" whereas a true hetero doesn't care, is busy fucking women and isn't offended. Formal studies have been done that found the men with the most violent hate against gays had the strongest arousal response when showed gay porn. Shrugging off insults is less about confronting the person dishing the insult, and more about confronting one's own self image and what insults trigger.