I think a major difference between exercising judgment and being judgmental lies in how much information you collect before coming to a judgment, and how willing you are to re-evaluate that judgment if you learn something new. Many people make snap judgments based on very superficial things and are then unwilling to change their minds. Those are the people I would call judgmental.

And I think judgmental people are jerks, and probably very insecure in their own beliefs deep down.

That is SO true. Over-sweetness bothers me much more than a bit of snarkiness. In my experience it's rare that a snarky, difficult person becomes worse as you get to know them better. In fact, they often mellow out and relax once they realize they don't need to be on the defensive with me. But overly-nice people are too often either deeply insecure or hiding dark intentions under all the niceness.

I do know some genuinely sweet people, like my husband, but there's a whole different feel to their kindness, if that makes any sense at all. They're much more laid back and natural about it, I think.

Eh, that was kind of off-topic, lol. Oh well.