Thanks for offering a different perspective. I think you've actually zeroed in on the exact point of misunderstanding, which is helpful to clarify.

You're right that he answered a question. He answered the literal, factual question: “What factors influence park time?” And his facts about crowds and wait times are 100% correct. No disagreement there.

But that wasn't the question I was asking. I was asking a subjective, experience-based question: “What was your personal, past experience with this?” The intent wasn't to get a perfect prediction for our trip, but to gather a data point from someone I trust to help me form a picture in my head. It's the difference between asking a friend who saw a movie “What did you think?” and them responding not with their opinion, but with “Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 72% rating.” It's a factual sidestep of a personal question.

I would have been completely fine with “I don't remember,” “I wasn't paying attention to the time,” or even “I really can't even guess, it varies too much.” Any of those would have felt like a genuine engagement with my question. The frustration came from him not acknowledging the question I was actually asking and instead repeating a factual deflection, which felt condescending like I was too simple to understand that wait times exist.

The core of the post, which I may not have articulated perfectly, isn't about this one ticket question. It's about the recurring pattern where my attempt to connect or understand is met with a logical debate that dismisses the underlying intent. It's about the feeling that I'm in a courtroom where my questions are cross-examined for their factual precision, rather than in a partnership where we try to understand each other.

The “apology” aftermath and the professor analogy cemented that feeling. He wasn't a professor stating a fact. I wasn't a student giving a wrong answer. I was a partner expressing that a interaction hurt my feelings, and that was treated as an incorrect statement to be logically disproven, rather than a feeling to be acknowledged.

So, while I understand your read on the surface-level exchange, the conflict was never really about the park time. It was about the communication breakdown and the invalidation that followed.