This also varies a lot across cultures: in Germany, people actually expect waiters to show up and say "Order?" and sometimes get irritated when they're overly bubbly. In the USA, the opposite is expected.
Right, it's about showing that you respect the social and cultural expectation, not about the specific expectation.
Some people have a very hard time adapting or accepting different cultural expectations, and their world is necessarily narrowed. It always makes sense logically, "Why should I have to play these games to show that I mean well, people should judge me by my more meaningful actions" but another way of looking at it is it's not worth it to them to make the microscopic effort to communicate willingness. If they're not willing to make even that little effort to make communication easier, what else are they unwilling to do?
