The focus is this - by answer this mini-interrogation (given it is an actual microaggression and not genuine curiosity which I still think shouldn’t be asked in a first meeting with someone) is this a power loss? Why or why not?

US seems pretty crazy so probably quite different to where I am Australia, but... I would say here usually that question is just asked out of curiousity, not always though. How are you differentitating between a curiosity vs snarky person? I am wondering because you making the wrong assessment would result in a potenitally big opportunity cost, ie someone wanted to engage with you and you rebuff them, so whatever oportunities came with that engagement are compromised and you therefore lose power. You could develop some response that would weed out the people who want to engage from the snarky ones while highlighting something about the snarky person that is to your benefit, for example maybe it ingratiates you with other people there or their boss or something.