Telling the story of meeting the new neighbor

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I was telling a NT guy I know that I had introduced myself my new neighbor. (I was rather proud of this fact, but I was trying to pass it off as casual.) The guy asked me pretty bluntly, 'What was your impression of your new neighbor?' This kind of shut me down because I know that talking about the qualities of another person is a good way to be wrong. I did make an intelligible answer, but since I didn't have much to say, the guy launched into a story about his own experience maintaining his own home.
Now my mind is racing as I look back on the conversation. The guy had this expectation that I had interrogated my new neighbor to assess the character of this person who would be living next to me, and had assumed that I wanted to talk about it. These social NTs spend all this time keeping tabs and evaluating each other. I'm just happy I got the introductions over with and now don't have to be bashful with anyone in the neighborhood about not knowing my new neighbor's name.
I joined this forum to break myself of the habit of thinking that I'm one social skill away from being 'normal'. Every time I do the work to perform a 'normal' act, I get all excited about it and think its gotten me into the 'club'. Then I get reminded how much stuff other people are doing that I am not.
Writing out the experience has been very helpful. I still feel that I've 'lost' something, but I'm not quite as discouraged. Please share your thoughts or similar experiences!

IR

I think you were right to initiate a friendly and casual introduction of yourself to your neighbor, and the guy who asked you for your assessment of the neighbor was wrong and was being overly nosy and intrusive. You win.

I think you did a great job

It is always good to know your neighbors. It helps to weave you into the community that you live in. As an Aspie, I am an extreme introvert and I find little pleasure in meeting new people. But there was one time in my life I felt it was a little bit more important.

My wife is an extreme extrovert and she is happy being an extrovert. It is important for me to allow her to be the best extrovert she can be. If I lock her away in a house and restrict her from developing new friendships, I will break her. So it is important for me to encourage and expand her social network. When we moved into a new housing development, none of our new neighbors came by for a visit. I could see that they were all waiting for someone else to break the ice. So when I got home from work each day I would take my wife in tow and walk over to a neighbor and knock on their door and introduce us and invite them over for a cup of coffee. About half of our neighbors were glad to meet us and they immediately invited us in for a chat. They became instant friends. This may sound like a strange thing for an introvert to do. But I am fearless but my wife is not and besides I didn’t really need to socialize, I just needed to introduce ourselves and then stand back and let my wife do all the talking.

Neighbours are a bit of a lottery. If you live in the "burbs" you need to conform to the neighborhood.

I unfortunately live in an upper middle class neighbourhood where my neighbors drive expensive European cars and have manicured gardens. They are mostly old snobby retired white people and Asians who can't speak a word of English.