The same thing happens to me, about knitting, food, and also the plants I choose for my garden. What makes it challenging is that sometimes they really do want to know, and sometimes they want an opening to talk about their own knitting/gardening/cooking/etc., and sometimes they are just trying to be polite. Humans are strange, indeed!

(It has made me more careful about the questions I ask, though, so that's a good thing.)