"discussions"

I saw an interesting essay today that made me think about how I discuss things with people. I have always enjoyed discussing things. In fact, as many people know, I sometimes err on the side of over analysing, especially when something is a little complex, but, even so, I reject being labelled as "too serious" or the claim "you think too much". For me there is little other point to life then thinking..
It is this that makes it hard at times interacting with other people. Very often something someone says or does provokes me to consider something that I havn't thought about and consequently I become very interested in the topic at hand, equally unfortunately it seems is that the person that might have instigated this thought process is not really interested or ready to have a discussion at the level I wish to. Of course my habit of playing devils advocate to new ideas (I do this to challenge the person who brought the idea up so that I can better get an understanding of how it works / fully fleshed out it is) tends to set people in apposition to me fairly quickly, and unless they come from a kind of "free discussion" background, normally found at uni's or philosophical type arena's, then they get angry pretty quickly. Being a geek I always fail to fully heed the warning signs and often push people over the edge from having a discussion to something that becomes quickly heated and very emotional. I guess this is the key difference, for me almost no topic I ever "discuss" ever evokes emotions, and even if they do, then I make sure to quash them so as to be able to be objective about the subject being discussed. The result is that I am happy to talk about almost anything that comes to mind or seems vaguely relevant to the conversation which includes many taboo areas (a few discussions about abortion and handicapped people come to mind).
What is interesting in relation to the original essay I referred to is that I often have conversations with friends that the entire point of which is to out manouvre the other person with quick logical points, there is an implicit recognition and understanding of the other persons view (this only comes when you know someone well), but the point of the immediate conversation is the mental sparring. I enjoy this a lot, but again I have problems translating that back into normal discussions where people think you are not taking them seriously, or become threatened by the tone, which invariably, becomes brusque, logical and perhaps slightly arrogant. All that said, please feel free to discuss this with me :)