In my opinion, downvotes are for adjusting rewards with the goal of disincentivizing spam and other abuse.. Expression of disagreement through open and honest discourse precludes the need of using them. For me it harkens back to a more web 2.0 mindset. Clearly you were both engaged in healthy debate, so I felt their use was completely unnecessary within that context.
Of course, if that is some understood signaling mechanism between you, my opinion doesn't really apply. Nevertheless, to the casual onlooker, a healthy exchange with downvotes applied in disagreement looks a bit petty. This is how I interpreted it, and I normally bring it up when I see it, because I love to see healthy debate. It's something I want to foster here.
This is probably accurate. Removed the downvote. The record from comments is clear about what I'm not supporting from the post which makes the dv redundant anyway.
Thank you for your time and effort
I appreciate your consideration, and you're welcome!