I'm not sure about this at all, but I wonder if both parties feel they have to smile first for something to happen. A social protocol, a non-verbal handshake, carried out before moving to the verbal. Kinda like how all partners in a remote business sometimes feel they are doing more work than everyone else, even if they are not.

Independent of whether this "mutual sensation of making first moves" idea is true or false, the right answer, as an actor, is to smile.