It is more that I don't think I was pretending at all. I did ask questions - but that doesn't mean I was surprised by existence of an audience for the presentation.

I have some hypotheses about that (some of which I listed) - but I am not so certain of their relative merit that I don't welcome input from others on the topic. Some of those involved clearly have quite a different perspective from me, and I am curious about what they think is happening.