u/DilithiumPistol

I was at a big art fair today. It's open-air so a lot of people brought their dogs. One such dog was a beautiful, black and white, obviously pure-bred Great Dane. He was very handsome and eye-catching. Now, in hindsight, I can understand how my request to pet this dog was not as funny or charming as I intended it to be, but it's a dog breed whose claim to fame is that they're like four-feet tall so I said, "can I pet your horse?" Again, in hindsight, it's eye-rolling. I've worked a register enough to know that the same joke repeated enough times (it's not scanning? I guess it's free haha :D) gets old, but unlike me at the register, there's no threat of being fired preventing this guy from unloading on me. "I hate that," he says. I thought he was about to make a joke, so I smiled. I guess this was a mistake. "Great Dane owners hate that. The horse/cow jokes, the saddle thing." "oh, no, I would never--" I start to say I would never like pretend to ride the dog or something, I'm aware that would hurt the dog. And I literally just asked to pet him. But this guy steamrolls right past me: "I mean, I've been told that eight or nine times already today!" I left, apologizing for being so cliche. He called out as I was walking away that I could pet the dog and he loves attention, but why on earth would I hang out with this guy who just harangued me and made me feel like the biggest asshole alive?

I guess I get that I was annoying, but damn. I feel like this guy spent probably $1000+ on the biggest, most attention-grabbing designer dog on earth because he gets off on making people feel bad for commenting on the size of the dog.

No ai used. Quotations used because I have a cool brain that replays any criticism constantly and I'm certain this is how the conversation went verbatim.

I need therapy, but a specific kind of scary bulldog therapist. I've been in some kind of therapy since I was little and unfortunately the biggest skill I've gotten from it is deflection. More than once, I've stopped going to a practitioner because I realize I'm paying someone way too much money to talk about Naruto for an hour. So I need a no-nonsense, gets-to-the-point, maybe even borderline unfriendly person who won't be easily drawn into my skillful (if unconscious) avoidance techniques. Please help.

Edit for more details in case they're helpful: I'm not religious, so the therapist in question must be cool with that and not bring everything back to faith or religious texts. I need help processing some past stuff, and feeling less emotionally shut down.

And frankly, I'm totally here for it. No fear of color here.