non-Americans have to understand that Americans take first impressions very seriously, not the least because you only get one

you don't have to be unctuous (Americans hate that, too), but in a casual and informal setting, you should strive to be neighborly or blandly agreeable

for quite some time I had worked around many Germans, some of whom I found quite cold, and who were quite direct with (honest, constructive) criticism, even early on in a relationship

as an American, I did not take this well, and it severely retarded my ability to relate to them

what I found even more puzzling is that after a long period of negative appraisal, sarcasm, or general iciness, some of them would suddenly and inexplicably warm up to me, but by then I had already dismissed them as someone worth being friends with

from their end, my surviving this initial phase of dressing down (either by improving or by taking it with good humor) meant that I was finally worth being friends with!

mutual noncomprehension: the German creates distance when the American wants warmth, and vice versa

this is heavily generalizing, but the wider point is thus: many reply guys think they are demonstrating value when they reply, both their own (because they think they have a good take) and yours (because they are signaling a belief that your take is worth their consideration)

they think that skipping over social niceties is a form of respect all its own, because social niceties are fake and femınine and gay, and jumping right to a critique is real and Chad and trad

"why would you need to get to know me first? find me in my takes"

some people are communicatively "American" in real life and "German" on the internet in the manner adumbrated above (or they're "American" on Facebook and "German" on Twitter), but I am American everywhere

I don't fear disagreement (I actively court it with some of my takes), and productive disagreements with mutuals have been hugely personally and intellectually transformative for me

but if our very first interaction is a disagreement without preamble, that worries me

most people don't care, they don't think this hard before tweeting, they may actively wish that we could all be Germans on Twitter (i.e., we should always be able to respectfully disagree without preamble in a first communication, and indeed this should be so for public figures)

but we can't all be Germans, because some of us are Americans, so be nice to us, we are fragile

(we could talk about how Americans value blandly agreeable first impressions because we live in a very large and very diverse country in which most people have few close friends and many weak ties--and nobody wants to maintain high-conflict weak ties--but that's for another day)

young people reading along, although it may not be in everyone's reach, especially during and after the dempanic, I strongly encourage you to live and work abroad for at least a small period of time, if only so you can see and verbalize the peculiarities of your home culture