Mk kinda a rant, so if you don’t wanna hear any of that, nows your time to leave!
I don’t really get people who are really judgmental, or spend a large portion of their time judging others negatively, or hyper obsessing over making being judgmental or critical such a huge part of their personality. It isn’t cool, it doesn’t make you any better, in fact I subconsciously view these people as lesser than because I don’t see the point of being so invested in what others do if they aren’t important/serve no meaning in my life other than to be a stranger. For example, I was actually recently talking to a friend of mine, and they had made a comment on my music taste, how I listened primarily to “white girl music” how I should “explore” my options more. Exploring new things is definitely an amazing thing, don’t get me wrong, but they would not stop from there, making assumptions about me that if you were to ask me, were quite rude, such as how I kinda obsess over Japanese culture??? I enjoy parts of Japanese culture, particularly their fashion and music, which I don’t think is weird at all. In general, making baseless or automatic assumptions about something without giving the person the benefit of the doubt first irks me a lot. This friend is very judgmental in general. Literally just leave people alone, idgaf if their outfit looked like shit, Im worried if my ass looks like shit or if my friends and loved ones look like shit.
It is certainly frustrating to deal with judgmental people, especially if they are judgmental of us or people we otherwise admire. I speak as someone who comes from a very judgmental background and have been making progress in becoming more accepting and understanding of those who I may not immediately understand or agree with. This has significantly reduced the distress in my life.
I kindly challenge some parts of your post, however. There’s a certain paradox in dealing with the judgmentalism of others. In it, we find ourselves, those who wish not to be judgmental and are aware of its issues, to be judging those who judge. Maybe I’m way off base here, but there’s a certain tolerance I’ve found in those who judge me because a mentally healthy and secure person is likely not going to judge others.
My father, for instance, used to shame me about the music I listened to when it began to deviate away from his. It took me years to realize that he is an anxious and insecure person and, because of his own upbringing, sees me listening to different music as me “betraying” him and fear of me being distant of him. While frustrating, I don’t wish to hold it against him.
To those people, I find it more useful (and less stressful) to extend compassion and sympathy. Although their behaviors can be toxic, it’s typically from a place of insecurity and maybe even fear. And in today’s world that seems to be all about confidence, I try not to shame others who are insecure, especially since I have my own insecurities. There’s often a certain stress to be confident that erodes true confidence.
If you find your friendship is causing more harm than good, then it’s not a bad thing to reevaluate your friendship and boundaries. It could be a good thing to confront them, but that may not go over well depending on how they interpret your confrontation.
This is all how I think about all this though and I since could be completely misguided, I am not imposing any “is” or “ought” onto you. This is purely my interpretation based on my own experiences.
My reply will be in response to the above portion of your post. I clarify that so that my message does not get perceived as a potential attack and, instead, is properly contextualized as a personal explanation.
That said, my judgmental nature, first and foremost, exists out of necessity. I found out, in retrospect, that I used to not know anything about myself. This enabled individuals to fill in the blanks for me and/or walk all over me. In other words, I was an impressionable coward, one who had those blanks filled in with prejudiced ideas that took years to recognize and break away from. Since then, I have refused to let myself be oblivious and silent. This manifests in a judgmental version of myself so that I can ensure I am as different from my past self as I can be, which is subsequently expressed using, for a few examples, patience, kindness, aggression, and/or condescension depending on what a situation deserves.