#1219: “My good friend’s boyfriend keeps ‘negging’ me.”

What I like about this one is it gives one very short, very accurate rule for dealing with folks who offer judgmental/negative comments on basic life activities, and its "Don’t engage the judgmental comments on their merits." Direct link: https://captainawkward.com/2019/07/23/1219-my-good-friends-boyfriend-keeps-negging-me/

I have a very big problem wherein I strongly desire to engage with judgmental comments on their merits, and not only does it not work, it's a great way to waste epic amounts of your time, and escalate something into an emotional argument. I'm AuHD and I just always want to logic folks into "coming around", especially when what they are saying is factually incorrect (you still need bug spray in a city my God, if not MORE of it in some cities - Philly has so much green space and so many rivers we might as well be Florida some summers), but usually when folks make statements of the kind the LW's friend's boyfriend does they are like teflon to anyone's logic but their own. My favorite technique in the real world is the one CA references further down the post - just say "Okay." and do what you were going to do anyway. If the comments continue, I simply just ignore them and do not respond, and I let that get as awkward as it needs to be because how awkward it is has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the other person.

Also on a personal language-nerd note "Don’t be an urban mosquito buffet!" is a phrase that fills me with delight.