Neurotypical here and yeah my brain often works this way and I believe it does for many others. What’s missing in this vignette are social skills from both parties.

Abruptly shifting topics like that often works better in a conversation with some sort of segue or acknowledgment of the shift: “This is off of that topic but I have a random question.”

The second party could reasonably be confused but when the thought process was explained to them they could have just accepted it and moved on without being denigrating.

So they both just need better social skills is all that I see.