"You sound like you're trying very hard to talk your way in circles around something, if you think this is meaningless, but if it has meaning then at the very least we shouldn't be equals," he says dryly.

Because, you know, how exactly is he supposed to take that other than negatively? He doesn't dislike Gregor, he thought they got along well enough the first time around, so where's all this coming from? The whole thing about there not being judgment and all is like him furiously trying to cover his own tracks in the snow, which is a funny thing to do if you're also trying to say there were never tracks in the first place.