humans are space orcs-type situation where almost all sapient aliens are one of or the sole dominant apex predator on their home worlds so no one is that surprised by the whole “humans are ravenously hungry predators” thing. it’s the future. we have lab-grown meat for almost everyone, and the few sapient herbivores we do have are very understanding about “i’m an obligate carnivore i’m gonna starve if i can’t eat at least mostly meat” so that’s fine
what they are very put off by is the social behavior. they’re mostly lone predators who will pair-bond with a mate or a small group to raise young, but not any more than that, so the concept of humans hanging out in groups that are hundreds strong is very odd
it’s not even that the desires for companionship and touch are weird. many species have domesticated some of their planets’ wildlife for the same reasons humans got dogs and horses, so they’re familiar with friendliness as a trait, but they’re used to it in animals that are, for fear of sounding rude, kinda dumb
humans are so, so wildly not dumb, and the combination of wicked smart and very friendly is a bit eerie to everyone. the human equivalent situation is something like “our hunting party adopted a golden retriever we saw on the street, and she spent like four hours cuddling with us, at her request mind you, and then grabbed a wrench and fixed our hyperdrive without asking. no one explained to her how one works and she claims she’s never seen one before and just ‘figured it out.’ i don’t know what to make of that”
