The SE policy is Be Nice. It applies at all times, and to people in the room, people on the site, people not on the site, people you know in meatspace and none of the rest of us know, celebrities, &c. Your self-censoring was appropriate. Even better: take a deep breath or two. Assume Good Faith of everyone you run across. When it seems two are talking past each other ask "what might I be missing?"
(Yes, it might be that the other person's the one missing something. But you can rarely fix that, and you can often learn something looking at oneself.)