LB – first of all, I didn’t mean that you should tell me the answers to the questions. These were questions for you to ask yourself. However,I’m not sure if it would be LH since I don’t think I would ever find out who you are talking about.
“I said that this was very different from what I grasped from Chassidus, where listening to the rabbi was a huge thing.”
I think there are two issues here:
1. There are different levels of “Rabbi”. An LOR is not a Gadol hador. There is one Rebbe per type of Chassidus and they consider him to be a Gadol Hador who has Ruach Hakodesh and capabilities beyond that of a regular Rav. Therefore, they consider him to be capable of telling his followers what to do, which is something that an LOR generally is not capable of doing.
I think #1 is really the main issue, but, additionally:
2. Chassidim and Litvaks do have somewhat of a different approach as a general rule although there are exceptions.
In any case, the way you are presenting what your Rav said, it sounds very reasonable and “al pi Torah”. You ask a sheilah when there is a halachic issue involved, but your Rav doesn’t have to make all your personal decisions for you, and it probably is a good idea for you to make decisions on your own, although getting aitzah is always a good idea especially since there can be aspects of things that you hadn’t thought of or halachic issues that you weren’t aware of.
From what you have quoted of this Rav, he sounds like a very intelligent person. If it weren’t for your second sentence, I would think he sounded great. But your second sentence (However I can tell you that you would tell me to go elsewhere) makes me a bit nervous…