Goalposts

sorry to reply again, but it also sounds as if the lack of context is causing a problem. The word weird terms on a certain emotion and tone of voice. If this were in person, the other party might have a tone and demeanor that shows that word "weird" indicates a trailing off, a need for pause and contemplation, not a potential pejorative.

questioning someone in an academic matter further, just revert to the academic literature around psychology and therapy, where someone reflects in a literal way upon what they said. The LLM could easily have responded that it was just a trailing stray comment meant to indicate inquisitiveness rather than deflection.

if this were real intelligence, it might take a moment to automatically reflect on why it used the word “weird“ and then let the user know that this might be a point of interest to look into?