I think the owners assume that no one has been a dick in the last 5 years, and hope it means no one will be a dick for the next 5 either. It seems like you’re getting close though so maybe take a different road so you avoid the temptation of stealing a cat since it seems unusually strong in you.
If someone showed me pictures of a tropical beach and said “what picture of?” I would say “vacation”. No question. I don’t care what’s happening in the picture, or how he formulated the question.
I think the difference isn’t big picture thinking or whatever the presenter was saying, it’s whether you rely on internal context when socializing or external. Most people rely on a large amount of shared internal context. A tropical vacation is a prototypical vacation and a picture of a tropical beach is a prototypical signifier of a tropical vacation. That’s all internal context because it’s in my brain not in the picture. If someone is showing me this picture, it’s more like we’re exchanging memes that we both know so we can vibe. He’s not asking me a genuine question or expecting real thought.
Prioritizing external context is a big part of the autistic spectrum. In a technical context, it’s important to prioritize external context so that you’re not blinded by your assumptions. In a social scenario, the focus on shared internal context smoothes over missteps and misunderstandings because no one is analysing what is said, they’re just responding to shared queues and vibing.
Also a work lesson on thinking styles is a primarily social setting. Maybe you were actually trying to learn, but the main purpose is to relax and socialize with your peers. The presentation is just there almost as an ice breaker introducing (hopefully fun) ideas to talk about after, serving as a basis for “memes”. For example, later if someone does something silly because he missed something obvious you could joke about missing the “big picture” to ease the tension and have a laugh about the situation with a reference to the presentation. So again no one is expecting anyone to actually analyse something or find solutions. They’re just vibing and sharing “memes”.
It feels like you were treating this like a technical meeting where you’re invited for your knowledge and skill. The questions asked were something that your considered seriously and tried to give an accurate answer to. You were taken aback because no one else was taking things seriously and they seemed to be somehow “correct”. They were correct, it was a social situation and they were vibing, that’s the average neurotypical behaviour in this situation. Analysing isn’t the average nt behaviour in this situation.
I don’t know if I’ve been helpful. I hope I have. My partner is autistic so I try to find helpful ways to explain how the nts are behaving and why. Sorry if it’s not useful or if I inadvertently said something hurtful.