People do apply their own life formula to other people. Sometimes it's cultural, or thoughtlessness: I get the marriage question persistently and predictably from certain cultural groups. Sometimes I think that it's because I've over-shared emotionally and people are uncomfortable with not knowing how to respond. For them, giving advice switches back into the ego mode: I'm guilty of doing that. In fact I think conversations with strangers can either be uncomfortably boundary-breaking emotional, or uncomfortably ego-centric. Hard to hold the delicate balance in the middle.

I like the suggestions of saying, 'I appreciate that you are trying to help, but... please don't'.

Interesting that this makes you nauseous @SilverTrees. It would be good for me to allow myself to feel the nausea rather than switching off in this type of situation.