You could have told him instead of being a jerk - I know from experience that this doesn't work, say in the work place, where proving your point like this is vi

You could have told him instead of being a jerk - I know from experience that this doesn't work, say in the work place, where proving your point like this is vital if you want to be heard - but for regular people this is basically an attack. Worst of all you told everyone else how to do it... Warning him would have been nice, this IS, by definition almost, malicious - regardless of how you chose to interpret the word yourself.