Is this an example of a social cognition problem?

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In reference to the restaurant/counter:

Restaurants operate under different procedures. Sometimes, you have to go to the register to pay; sometimes, the waiter will take your money.

You're not psychic--you have to have gone to the restaurant at least once in order to get a gauge on how they operate.

I guess the best thing to do in these situations is to watch how the other people do things.

Since you hadn't been to the Doctor in a long time, there was no way for you to know. Your mother shouldn't have snapped at you for not knowing things had changed, that was completely unfair. And the other lady is probably just used to people knowing the newest way to do things. Some people never or rarely get sick, so there would be other people, with and without Autism, that don't know and could end up in that situation.

I have been to tons of doctors and never heard of this. The only thing I've ever been told to pay up front is a co-pay. Some offices tell you that you must pay the co-pay up front, and others let you wait until after. But if it is an out-of-network doctor and there is no co-pay I *NEVER* pay until the visit is over, because I would want to be able to confirm procedures done as necessary before I am obligated to pay for them.

I think some of you are missing the point. It is not a question of whether I should have known ahead of time how they do things, and it is not about anyone being right or wrong, or fair or unfair.

This is a question of pragmatics. The point is that the girl behind the counter kept hinting indirectly that I was supposed to go ahead and pay, but I completely misinterpreted the signals. She kept repeating the total and looking at expectantly, and it just didn't clue me in. I wasn't even thinking of the possibility that she wanted me to pay.

And I have been to this same office before, about 2 years go, although I don't have the slightest recollection of whether I paid that day before or after seeing the doctor. What I do remember is that after I saw the doctor and came back out to the counter, at the time when I would have expected to pay, they wanted to take my picture for my file, which was completely unexpected and very upsetting.

What I actually had in mind though was the doctor's office I went to most often growing up, and a different one I went to a few times in my late teens and 20s, and at both of those places you had to pay as you were leaving. I had a strong visual image in mind of both of those places, what the counters looked like and how I would walk up to pay just before leaving. So not remembering what happened 2 years ago, I thought back to those older memories and I had a very rigid expectation that this place would work the same way.

The question is not whether or not I should have known ahead of time, theoretically anyone could visit this office for the first time and not realize that it is expected to pay first. But I think most people would figure it out at some point. The question is, at what point does a normal person catch on to the hints...after the total is repeated twice? 3 times? Would the tone of voice clue them in? I thought she sounded oddly irritated or impatient, but I just figured she was in a bad mood. If my mother hadn't been with me to tell me, I wouldn't have ever caught on.

I'm surprised to see so many dismissive comments in this thread, though I shouldn't be, as it seems to be par for the course on this forum for posters to deny that other posters have legitimate problems. The fact is that I avoid going to a lot of places by myself because I have problems with this sort of thing, with figuring out procedures for how to do things and understanding what people are suggesting me to do, and it is very frustrating.

The lady showed bad pragmatics by not asking directly for payment, after you didn't proffer the payment at first. She would have shown good pragmatics had she put it in a nice way.