I choose to believe the more wholesome version that this is their gay, autistic, and genuinely endearing friend who got started on his special interest without realizing that nobody else cared, and his friends otherwise like him enough that they're trying to figure out how to move the conversation forward without hurting his feelings after they all lost interest minutes ago.

"So during Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Spock is passing through decks in the Enterprise, and we see one called Deck 78. Now you see, this class of Enterprise only has 23 decks, and so unless we assume someone misnamed this deck, how did this one get here? Some fans have speculated that maybe maybe Q put it there as a practical joke to confuse the audience, but why would Q use the number 78 specifically? This could be a reference to the episode All Our Yesterdays in The Original Series which is production code 78. In this episode, Spock reverts to being emotional like his primitive ancestors after traveling back through time, and this could be hinting to the idea that he secretly feels emotions for his half-brother Sybok who's the antagonist of the movie."