Actually, I thought "Amazingly you do have potential." did come over as a bit condescending
, though that wasn't what was being complained about. As far as I can see, Cinisajoy's input, aside from that lapse, have all been excellent and aimed at being helpful.
According to the OED, "anthology" was originally a "collection of flowers of verse [...] by various authors" that has since been "extended to other literary collections". Notice that the common word in all these definitions is "collection". Without explicit qualification, "collection" does not imply any relationship between the items in the collection. It does not, technically, deny a possible relationship, and anthologies are often put together using stories matching some theme, but the common inference remains: the pieces are not otherwise related.
If you want people reading the title to assume the book contains a collection of unrelated stories then use "anthology". If that's not what you want then choose some other phrasing.