I’ve encountered this kind of response before and have been similarly frustrated, and I think you’re describing a real thing, however: in my own experience, sometimes these sorts of seemingly nonsequitur counterpoints are not meant to be counterpoints against my original normative point. I only realize this if I ask what they meant by it. Surprisingly often, I learn that the person who made that comment just sort of wanted to add some adjacent context and decided to drop it in without explaining their intent. Then I had reasonably but wrongly assumed it was meant to be a counterpoint to what I said, because it vaguely resembled disagreement.
Even though I try to remember to clarify their intent first, I tend to still think it’s poor communication on their part. When I add in adjacent context, I usually preface it with something like “This isn’t to say your point is invalid, but it’s worth knowing XYZ”. Actually, this entire comment is sort of in that format...
I’ve encountered this kind of response before and have been similarly frustrated, and I think you’re describing a real thing, however: in my own experience, sometimes these sorts of seemingly nonsequitur counterpoints are not meant to be counterpoints against my original normative point. I only realize this if I ask what they meant by it. Surprisingly often, I learn that the person who made that comment just sort of wanted to add some adjacent context and decided to drop it in without explaining their intent. Then I had reasonably but wrongly assumed it was meant to be a counterpoint to what I said, because it vaguely resembled disagreement.
Even though I try to remember to clarify their intent first, I tend to still think it’s poor communication on their part. When I add in adjacent context, I usually preface it with something like “This isn’t to say your point is invalid, but it’s worth knowing XYZ”. Actually, this entire comment is sort of in that format...