[mike741]

What is the questioners line of reasoning if they haven't made any claims? If they have made a mixture of claims and questions then they can have flaws but its misleading to call them "questioners" at that point, since they've done more than just ask questions.

> Their stubbornness in pursuing a contradiction only succeeds if there is a contradiction they were already aware of

I don't think this is true at all. You can recognize a statement of the form "X is not X" without having come across it before. As for the stubbornness, this can apply to both parties: the contradiction only appears when the answering party can't bring themselves to say "I don't know", "I assume", or "I don't have time for this"

[nine_zeros]

I think you answered it for yourself.

The Socratic method claims to find inconsistencies by asking questions. Thus, these questions are not questions of curiosity, but questions with an underlying line of reasoning. This in itself leads the answerer to feel that the questioner is disingenuous in the conversation. They could walk away from the conversation, rendering the questioners entire effort futile.