Pursuing a passion often takes perseverance and resilience.

If you had a friend who was pursing a passion but hadn’t found success yet, would you be supportive or encourage them to give up?

This woman was catching up with an old friend at a party.

Her friend is pursuing a writing career, and he shared that he had submitted dozens of short stories, but got rejected 50 times.

While on the topic, she asked an innocent question but later found out her question upset him.

Check out the story below for all the details.

AITA for implying my friend might need to give up on his literary ambitions?

I saw my friend, we’ll call him Paul (40M), recently at a party.

He and I were in a small group, chatting and updating each other on our lives.

Someone asked Paul how his writing career is going.

Paul works a normal 9 to 5, but has also mentioned he wants to be a writer a few times.

Paul hasn’t been published yet despite multiple submissions.

He is working on taking it more seriously and taking classes and such.

He said he has started submitting short stories to literary magazines, but has no luck getting published yet.

In his words, he had “racked up around 50 rejections and counting so far.”

Our other friend offered some words of encouragement.

This man innocently asked Paul a question.

I’m not super familiar with the writing industry, but 50 rejections is quite a lot. From my perspective, it could mean something.

Sure, 2 or 3 is no big deal, but 50 is quite a lot.

I said something like, “At what point do you stop submitting and focus on it more as a hobby than a career since you haven’t had any luck yet?”

He didn’t mean for Paul to give up, but maybe just consider writing as a hobby.

I didn’t mean to imply that he should give up necessarily.

I just thought it might be worth thinking about if he’s already put a lot of work into it but it isn’t working out.

I know plenty of people who write as a hobby, but don’t try to get published, and there’s no shame in it.

Paul sent him a text message later, saying that he was hurt by his comment.

He seemed a little taken aback, but cracked a joke saying, “At the 200 mark maybe.”

Later that night, he (maybe slightly drunk) sent me a text saying my comment was disrespectful and he was hurt by it.

Am I the jerk for making this comment and suggesting it might be time for him to give up on getting published?

I could see how Paul was offended.

Let’s see how others reacted to this story on Reddit.

This user shares their personal thoughts.

This person makes a valid point.

Rejection in the writing community is very common, says this person.

Short and simple.

Finally, people are calling him out for being rude.

A harmless comment can still be offensive to someone who’s trying so hard.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.