Online unpleasantness Today I had an unpleasant online interaction and I feel the need to unpack/process the experience. I was chatting in English with a native speaker (a teacher on this site), and I thought we were getting along well enough. As far as I perceived we were working out a quirk in the iTalki interface which had allowed me to book a 90 minute lesson, a lesson length which the teacher thought they had disabled (turned out they had disabled it on the site, but for some reason the change hadn’t been registered in the app). After I thought this part of the conversation was resolved I asked about scheduling a lesson of a different length. Up to this point I thought we had both been polite, but their next response seemed really passive aggressive which caught me completely off guard, and admittedly made me act impulsively. This was the first moment in the conversation I could sense that anything was wrong, and it was a very politely worded suggestion that find another tutor “who could accommodate my desire for 90 minute lessons”. It was clear from our conversation that I had no special desire for 90 minute lessons in particular, but I restated that fact before attempting to call this person out on what I perceived as their sudden unprompted rudeness. However, as I clicked send I was informed that they had blocked my messages. Alright. I was confused and frustrated at not knowing what I might have done wrong and at the person I was chatting with for not being more direct in their communication. Then(!), after blocking me, they sent me a message telling me they didn’t care for my attitude and pointing out one comment (where I thought we were commiserating about the iTalki interface being bad) as particularly upsetting, then telling me in no uncertain terms that they did not want to give me lessons and not to contact them again. I tried writing a short apology and assurance that they would not hear from me again, but as I said: they had blocked me... I don’t really know what to take away from this. I can sort of see what they’re referring to as bad attitude, but I think it relies on jumping to an uncharitable interpretation of my character pretty quickly. I also think it could have been dealt with more gracefully if it had been addressed quicker and more directly. For me it suddenly escalated quicker than I could get my bearings. It must also have been frustrating for them dealing with some uncouth moron. Their experience is valid and probably much more vexing than mine :/