A short online exchange is a poor place to decide everything about a stranger.

Three lines of text carry almost none of what you would need to judge a person. No tone, no history, no idea what kind of day they are having or what they were replying to before you arrived. The mind fills that in anyway, builds a whole character out of a phrase, and then starts defending the portrait as though it were observed rather than invented.

When a stranger’s message annoys you, try composing the most plausible innocent version of it before you reply. Notice how little you would need to change for it to read differently. Then decide whether the exchange deserves your afternoon at all.