:Is your kind - at least as mentally resilient, or more resilient, than a human?  If Van had seemed less tired I would have been asking him for forebearance, just from expecting friction between different cultures; but by the time I was - less worried - myself, I'd noticed he was tired to the point of not seeming to want a lot of communication-protocol overhead.  But I'm worried... no, it seems very likely that at some point I'll say something that hurts or offends him or you, without my having wished at all to do that.  If you don't know any better than I do how to avoid that, that's... the best we can do, I guess, but it seems good to say explicitly before going on.  If you'd rather not deal with so much meta, I can skip to one of my object-level questions.:

:Is your kind - at least as mentally resilient, or more resilient, than a human?  If Van had seemed less tired I would have been asking him for forebearance, just from expecting friction between different cultures; but by the time I was less - mentally busy - on my side, I'd noticed he was tired to the point of not seeming to want a lot of communication-protocol overhead.  But I'm worried... no, it seems very likely that at some point I'll say something that hurts or offends him or you, without my having wished at all to do that.  If you don't know any better than I do how to avoid that, that's... the best we can do, I guess, but it seems good to say explicitly before going on.  If you'd rather not deal with so much meta, I can skip to one of my object-level questions.: