> they really don’t expect you to make jokes or entertain them

Oh, but they do, if you want to have future conversations with them. As a slow thinker with the same social issues as OP, trust me, they do. Nobody wants to keep talking to someone they consider boring, and first impressions are still the most important impressions.

As someone who believed both versions of this in different parts of my life, I’m pretty convinced that it is a choice to believe in either one