Is it just me?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Great. Now my friends are pissed at me because I said something.

[Doktor Howl]

Sometimes unsolicited advice is merely someone trying to be helpful, not necessarily being a jackass.  Or maybe feeling like they just need to add to the conversation and that was all they could come up with. 

I just tend to ignore that stuff.  Like when your wife is expecting.  YOu get all kinds of unsolicited advice then, but, more often than not, it's just people, in their way, trying to be helpful.

My favorite is parenting advice from childless people.  That always goes over well with the Doktor.   

Ohhh my god. That makes me want to stab people in the mouth.

There's something suicidal about some people.  They have no expertise in the matter, and yet they MUST be experts on the subject.

Also, being told by other parents that spanking a kid between ages 1 & 5 is "child abuse and will damage the poor little darlings", while in the same conversation bemoaning that their kids are impossible to deal with.

I'm talking about Wyldkat in particular here, but silly fucking hippies in general. 

PROTIP:  If you can't control your own children, please to not be telling me how to raise mine.  Kthxbye.

[Doktor Howl]

Great. Now my friends are pissed at me because I said something.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Great. Now my friends are pissed at me because I said something.

My local friends. The BBS. I made a sarcastic comment:

Or possibly I'm a completely clueless person with very poor critical thinking skills and no experience on which to base my conclusion.

which resulted in hurt feelings. I apologized for it and said:

It did get under my skin a little that more than one person seemed to think that I had decided to add this class four days after I registered for my other classes without actually thinking about it or having any idea what I was doing. And I didn't ask for advice, I just said that I'd added it. I guess it's my own fault for using the BBS to post Facebook-esque updates.

In general, I do tend to find unsolicited advice kind of insulting, unless there is a good reason for the advice-giver to think they are privy to information that I wouldn't have.

This has resulted in a lot of criticisms and one flounce. And I am talking about people who have been my IRL friends here locally for ten years or more.

[Doktor Howl]

Great. Now my friends are pissed at me because I said something.

My local friends. The BBS. I made a sarcastic comment:

Or possibly I'm a completely clueless person with very poor critical thinking skills and no experience on which to base my conclusion.

which resulted in hurt feelings. I apologized for it and said:

It did get under my skin a little that more than one person seemed to think that I had decided to add this class four days after I registered for my other classes without actually thinking about it or having any idea what I was doing. And I didn't ask for advice, I just said that I'd added it. I guess it's my own fault for using the BBS to post Facebook-esque updates.

In general, I do tend to find unsolicited advice kind of insulting, unless there is a good reason for the advice-giver to think they are privy to information that I wouldn't have.

This has resulted in a lot of criticisms and one flounce. And I am talking about people who have been my IRL friends here locally for ten years or more.

They'll get over it.  Right now, they're thinking "I could realize what I said was silly, or just lash out instead."

Later on, they'll be thinking "I was dumb."

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Sometimes unsolicited advice is merely someone trying to be helpful, not necessarily being a jackass.  Or maybe feeling like they just need to add to the conversation and that was all they could come up with. 

I just tend to ignore that stuff.  Like when your wife is expecting.  YOu get all kinds of unsolicited advice then, but, more often than not, it's just people, in their way, trying to be helpful.

My favorite is parenting advice from childless people.  That always goes over well with the Doktor.   

Oh God, had a good rage tremor just hearing you mention that!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Great. Now my friends are pissed at me because I said something.

My local friends. The BBS. I made a sarcastic comment:

Or possibly I'm a completely clueless person with very poor critical thinking skills and no experience on which to base my conclusion.

which resulted in hurt feelings. I apologized for it and said:

It did get under my skin a little that more than one person seemed to think that I had decided to add this class four days after I registered for my other classes without actually thinking about it or having any idea what I was doing. And I didn't ask for advice, I just said that I'd added it. I guess it's my own fault for using the BBS to post Facebook-esque updates.

In general, I do tend to find unsolicited advice kind of insulting, unless there is a good reason for the advice-giver to think they are privy to information that I wouldn't have.

This has resulted in a lot of criticisms and one flounce. And I am talking about people who have been my IRL friends here locally for ten years or more.

They'll get over it.  Right now, they're thinking "I could realize what I said was silly, or just lash out instead."

Later on, they'll be thinking "I was dumb."

I hope so. I was wondering if I was way overreacting, but I've been really calm about it. Offended, but puzzled rather than angry.

Until the most recent person said:

Why do you find unsolicited advice insulting? It seems that you are assuming bad intent, which is kind of a shitty thing to do when you're talking to a group of your actual friends.

And then I kind of flipped out.  :

I find it insulting when it takes the specific form of second-guessing.

And sometimes I find it insulting when it's something incredibly obvious, but then I try to consider the source.

Also I kind of hate how the most innocuous statement of fact here gets turned into a NO YOU'RE WRONG fest.

I'm adding a Spanish class because I don't think the homework will be unmanageable.

I'm doing my laundry because all my underwear are dirty.

I'm planting spinach because I like spinach.

I mean, which of these remarks invites the response that I'm doing it wrong or that I'm jumping to conclusions? In what way have I jumped to a conclusion with any of these?

No, I haven't taken Spanish 101 before. But it doesn't take a genius to read the description, look at how many hours the class is, eyeball the textbook, check ratemyprofessor.com, and conclude that the homework load is probably going to be pretty light. There's really no reason that I should... actually, fuck it. Why would I think I would need to justify the addition of a class? I was just excited and sharing what I was doing with my friends.

If someone was curious about how I came to the conclusion the homework was manageable, they could ask and I would gladly type out all of that tedium I just outlined up there.

But seriously, what the fuck. Wouldn't you assume that any reasonable adult would kinda have some kind of handle on such elementary stuff?

I'm going to put a potato in my soup because it could use more potatoes

AREN'T YOU JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS ABOUT HOW MANY POTATOES THE SOUP COULD USE?

No, dude. Just what. Is. Wrong with people lately?

Anyway, I'm out for a while. I don't want to have this conversation

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

It's knee-jerk not-racism. *sage nods* They're insulted on behalf of the Mexicans who have trouble with English. Naturally if English is a complex language then Spanish is a complex language with lots of homework. Because it's all about equality.

This is a conversation I had with someone about taking Spanish in high school and why the 101 should be considered an AP course when all it was was vocabulary lists and reading aloud in class.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's knee-jerk not-racism. *sage nods* They're insulted on behalf of the Mexicans who have trouble with English. Naturally if English is a complex language then Spanish is a complex language with lots of homework. Because it's all about equality.

This is a conversation I had with someone about taking Spanish in high school and why the 101 should be considered an AP course when all it was was vocabulary lists and reading aloud in class.

I seriously hope that's not why they reacted that way, because it's totally inapplicable considering that all I said was that the homework should be pretty easy. Not the class, even; just the homework.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

It's knee-jerk not-racism. *sage nods* They're insulted on behalf of the Mexicans who have trouble with English. Naturally if English is a complex language then Spanish is a complex language with lots of homework. Because it's all about equality.

This is a conversation I had with someone about taking Spanish in high school and why the 101 should be considered an AP course when all it was was vocabulary lists and reading aloud in class.

I seriously hope that's not why they reacted that way, because it's totally inapplicable considering that all I said was that the homework should be pretty easy. Not the class, even; just the homework.

It would be pretty fucking stupid. But I tend to assume that the most retarded reason is the right one for any given absurd reaction. I've become comically cynical in my thirties. As opposed to just cynical.

[Freeky]

It's knee-jerk not-racism. *sage nods* They're insulted on behalf of the Mexicans who have trouble with English. Naturally if English is a complex language then Spanish is a complex language with lots of homework. Because it's all about equality.

This is a conversation I had with someone about taking Spanish in high school and why the 101 should be considered an AP course when all it was was vocabulary lists and reading aloud in class.

That's dumb.  Languages, to people who pick them up easy, are easy in general. 

Well, the normally spoken ones anyway, the ones that have alphabets with sounds attached to letters that make up words.  Languages like math are slightly more difficult, because you're making one alphabet do a bazillion times more work, and for myself, I find the chemistry language impossible to follow just yet...

/thread jack.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's knee-jerk not-racism. *sage nods* They're insulted on behalf of the Mexicans who have trouble with English. Naturally if English is a complex language then Spanish is a complex language with lots of homework. Because it's all about equality.

This is a conversation I had with someone about taking Spanish in high school and why the 101 should be considered an AP course when all it was was vocabulary lists and reading aloud in class.

I seriously hope that's not why they reacted that way, because it's totally inapplicable considering that all I said was that the homework should be pretty easy. Not the class, even; just the homework.

It would be pretty fucking stupid. But I tend to assume that the most retarded reason is the right one for any given absurd reaction. I've become comically cynical in my thirties. As opposed to just cynical.

I'm starting to think I need new friends, locally. I've had these ones for most of (and in some cases, all of) my adult life, but lately they don't seem to fit very well any more.

And oddly, as I grow older and less contentious, they seem to become more contradictory and, in some cases, even disparaging. I have been finding it very curious how opinionated, and discouraging, some of them have been about fairly innocuous choices the two of us who are in school are making. It's especially odd because the rest of them all have graduate or doctorate degrees, so it's not like they even feel threatened, the way sometimes groups of peers will if most of them don't have degrees and then one or two people decide to pursue an education. Mona got slammed because she uses an iPad, and now I'm getting shit for taking four classes next term (technically five, but one of them is a one-credit class that only meets five times the whole term). What the hell is that?

I also kind of feel like now that I finally have my post-divorce life under control and going in a positive direction, all of a sudden this group of friends has started treating me as if I'm less competent. It's baffling.

[Phox]

That is certainly odd, Nigel. My only guess is that they are failing to see things outside of their long-held views. An iPad is a device that simply has no use other than as a vanity item, and you can't possibly type notes on it at any meaningful speed. Spanish was difficult for me, and I was always buried in homework, or that is what all the people I've known who have taken Spanish have said,  therefore every Spanish class must necessarily be like that.

I'm probably not even close, but that's all I can make compute, given that I don't know the people, and all I've got to go on is what you've said.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

It's knee-jerk not-racism. *sage nods* They're insulted on behalf of the Mexicans who have trouble with English. Naturally if English is a complex language then Spanish is a complex language with lots of homework. Because it's all about equality.

This is a conversation I had with someone about taking Spanish in high school and why the 101 should be considered an AP course when all it was was vocabulary lists and reading aloud in class.

That's dumb.  Languages, to people who pick them up easy, are easy in general. 

Well, the normally spoken ones anyway, the ones that have alphabets with sounds attached to letters that make up words.  Languages like math are slightly more difficult, because you're making one alphabet do a bazillion times more work, and for myself, I find the chemistry language impossible to follow just yet...

/thread jack.

I couldn't speak Math until I encountered the Calculus dialect. Then poof! it all made sense. Chemistry gives me the heebie-jeebies. I can't even shape my mouth in the appropriate contortions to utter its foul incantations. I'd love to learn Music, though. Which is mostly Math augmented by various gestures and tools.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

It's knee-jerk not-racism. *sage nods* They're insulted on behalf of the Mexicans who have trouble with English. Naturally if English is a complex language then Spanish is a complex language with lots of homework. Because it's all about equality.

This is a conversation I had with someone about taking Spanish in high school and why the 101 should be considered an AP course when all it was was vocabulary lists and reading aloud in class.

I seriously hope that's not why they reacted that way, because it's totally inapplicable considering that all I said was that the homework should be pretty easy. Not the class, even; just the homework.

It would be pretty fucking stupid. But I tend to assume that the most retarded reason is the right one for any given absurd reaction. I've become comically cynical in my thirties. As opposed to just cynical.

I'm starting to think I need new friends, locally. I've had these ones for most of (and in some cases, all of) my adult life, but lately they don't seem to fit very well any more.

And oddly, as I grow older and less contentious, they seem to become more contradictory and, in some cases, even disparaging. I have been finding it very curious how opinionated, and discouraging, some of them have been about fairly innocuous choices the two of us who are in school are making. It's especially odd because the rest of them all have graduate or doctorate degrees, so it's not like they even feel threatened, the way sometimes groups of peers will if most of them don't have degrees and then one or two people decide to pursue an education. Mona got slammed because she uses an iPad, and now I'm getting shit for taking four classes next term (technically five, but one of them is a one-credit class that only meets five times the whole term). What the hell is that?

I also kind of feel like now that I finally have my post-divorce life under control and going in a positive direction, all of a sudden this group of friends has started treating me as if I'm less competent. It's baffling.

Sooooooounds like you're still growing and they're in a rut. Dunno, though. Either way, I suggest solving it with fire.