I know you left this review months ago, but I just wanted to let you know that I understand what you mean! I think this is an interesting, innovative game, but I agree that the conversation theme can have some unintended negative implications. In spite of all the complexity built into the system, it still has to depend on a reductive model of communication. That can't be helped, of course, because human communication is incredibly complicated, and it's a game, not real life--but I found I had to remind myself to keep a "this is just a game" mindset sometimes, because it doesn't feel great to be yelled at for no good reason, even by cartoon characters.
In my first play-through, I ended up acting like an insular, cowardly person (repeatedly going to the same places and buddying up to the same characters regardless of whether I liked them), not because that's who I wanted to be, but because I felt the system rewarded me for doing so. If I do another play-through, I'll lean even harder into "this is just a game" and just make the opposite choices I did before so that I can explore the rest of the map, even if it means acting like a jerk.
Basically, I think this is a fascinating game, but it's not always fun for me to play it. (Does a game have to be fun to be considered successful? Getting into game philosophy here...) So I just wanted to tell you, random stranger on the internet, that I hear where you're coming from!