I honestly don't believe that you weren't being passive-aggressive, and it's more likely that you don't even realize that you were doing it. And there's plenty of reasons to be passive-aggressive over insulting someone directly, one big reason being that it allows one to maintain the look of a good character instead of being the bad guy who's just insulting someone for a petty reason. It's pretty ridiculous that I even have to explain to you why someone would be passive-aggressive.
And let's assume that you're telling the truth, even then you ought to think before making comments towards people based on blind assumptions. I never asked for your recommendation.
Moreover, I'm not the only one who thinks that you were being rude with your "recommendation", given that I wasn't even the one who downvoted your comment in the first place. As proof of that, I'll downvote your comment now to show you that there will now be 2 downvotes on it.
Once again, I will say, this whole situation started either because of your plain stupidity or much worse, your disingenuity.