I'm aware that this is going to be very long and too much info, but here it goes.
My Dad posted a couple of things in family group chat, trying to get my attention. It's about some gadget that only I'd care about.
I only replied today, and he jumped to a conversation. He started to ask me how things are going etc., then:
Dad: [random youtube music]
Me: what is this 😂
Dad: interesting music, it's Eastern European folk music
Me: 😂😂
Dad: it's not your thing, is it!
Me: ok... I think you can start a blog. There must be someone else interested in this.
[Yes I have 0 interest in this stuff but I didn't want to seem too harsh]
Dad: oh no, I'm much more suited to reading others' blogs, not writing them.
Dad: [another youtube music]
Dad: I saw this another day. It's actually very popular stuff. It's X, Y, Z from S era of Japan.
[X, Y, Z, S are sort of technical art/history terms, very pretentious because neither of us are artists/historians]
Me: hmm, good.
Dad: it's an interesting period.
Me: I don't understand.
Dad: There's English subtitle.
Me: OK. I mean I'm not interested. 😂S era was a long time ago, I have 0 interest in it.
Then Dad shifts to the end of the conversation. I actually wanted to point out 'Please don't do this anymore' without being too harsh, as in I don't want unsolicited sharing with commentary. So my mistake was belabouring this point. I continued to say I don't understand the XYZ commentary.
Me: I don't like the commentary, because I don't get it and it's a bit exhausting.
Dad: I'm just sharing, not trying to impose.
Dad: Also, XYZ are not exactly uncommon words. S era may be, as that's more sentimental from my time.
Me: If you like writing about this, seriously consider a blog!
Dad: oh, I wouldn't have any audience that I'd like to address!
Me: Ha, so you're acknowledging that... you're treating me as your audience! Were you doing unsolicited lecturing just now?
and some discussions about my experience of being lectured on, especially by men, ensued.
I also reminded him that he sent a lot of unsolicited, pirated PDFs of novels he read recently in the group. I told him it's annoying. He totally forgot and asked me for context and 'proof.'
i don't know, I just feel exhausted as he has no other friends to share this with. I feel like I was being quite clear that I'm not interested but I dragged on a bit because I don't want this to happen again. I also don't like that he expects me to react to his interest. I know I could have just left it in the first instance, I just wanted to state my feeling once and for all.
After the above, I reinforced my feeling and told him I don't welcome random poetry (the way he wrote about XYZ was really like poetry). He said 'It's not poetry! It's just scattered thought without much context!'. I find this quite annoying, as in, well, then you're acknowledging you don't really care for my input are you? You're not here for a conversation.
Am I unreasonable to feel... just drained from this? I mean I could have let him down a lot less gently, less emoji but I was just being patient, trying to not hurt his feeling.
Please the wise bunch of MN, tell me how I could have prevented this kind of interaction!