It’s not about “being offended”. I understand people love to ask that question to shift the responsibility away from themselves and onto the listener, but it shouldn’t be so hard to understand.
If you’re commuting on a bus and someone starts blasting Cardi B’s “WAP” as loud as they can, singing along, and occasionally blowing cigarette smoke in your face, it doesn’t really matter whether you, yourself, are a smoker, or whether you like Cardi B’s music.
Yet when it comes to public Internet forums, somehow the question asked is always “why can’t you tolerate jerks”, and never “why can’t we have a conversation without being jerks”.
What’s wrong with having a conversation without slapping labels onto each other? What’s wrong with having a discussion without ad hominems?