Just commit, no matter the response. Adding /s is akin to explaining a joke after you tell it. If someone doesn’t understand or pick up on the sarcasm, it’s not your responsibility to spell it out for them. You add /s because you don’t want to be held accountable.
You right as social animals we do have a need for human connection (to be liked as u said) but that need can be fullfilled by our friends as we do for them. I dont see why u need everyone to like you i find it very freeing that i can be hated by someone and not care because i know that i have friends who do care. As some motherfucker once said if you can count your good freinds on one hand you know they are real freinds or something along those lines anything more is an excersise in vanity.
Being liked often does get you what you want or at least makes it easyer. I suspect that phychopaths are constantly weighing up how much they need you but then again phycopathy often does come with narsasism which tends to give people a need to be loved homelander and trump are excellent examples of narsasism leading to the need to be loved.