How should どうせ be interpreted here?


Recently, I stumbled upon a conversation which looked like this:

> Girl - 器が小さい男じゃのよ！  
>  Guy - どうせ器が小さいですよ！

The context here is that the girl wanted to do something to the guy that the
guy didn’t want to happen, and the girl says the former line, to which the guy
replies with the latter line.

I know that どうせ means either an inevitablity with giving up nuance, and can
also have similar meaning to せっかくなら when used with conditionals. How does the
meaning fit in here?

My guess would be that the どうせ kind of functions like an “of course I am going
to be petty” or “I can’t do anything about it (since you are doing this to
me).

Is one of my interpretations correct?




This どうせ is used in admitting some negative quality pointed out by someone
else.

A: (お前は)Xだ  
B: どうせXだ/ですよ

roughly corresponds to

A: You are X.  
B: I know (You don't have to tell me).

(Here X=器が小さい).

The exact nuance depends on the relationship between A and B. It might be _I
know, so what?_ or _I know...(feeling kind of sorry about there being nothing
that can be done.)_.

From what you put in the question, I guess the particular case is closer to
the latter.




This どうせ is used in admitting some negative quality pointed out by someone
else.

A: (お前は)Xだ  
B: どうせXだ/ですよ

roughly corresponds to

A: You are X.  
B: I know (You don't have to tell me).

(Here X=器が小さい).

The exact nuance depends on the relationship between A and B. It might be _I
know, so what?_ or _I know...(feeling kind of sorry about there being nothing
that can be done.)_.

From what you put in the question, I guess the particular case is closer to
the latter.

