Interesting, and perhaps related, is the tendency of people who aren't socially inclined (and tend not to enjoy small-talk) to employ the ask-a-million questions technique. This is how many-an-engineer can muscle through the most awkward social interactions with ease. The upsides of this approach are: 1) you will seem genuinely interested and come across as personable, and 2) you get to learn new things.
That helps, but what a socially-adept person is usually looking for is for you to make a statement that relates their answer back to yourself and then gives them an opportunity to follow up:
A: What is your major?
B: English
A: Oh, cool, I took an English course in college. Probably nowhere near as detailed
as your studies, but I enjoyed it.
B: Oh? Which course?
A: Science fiction.
B: Never took that one. Which books did you read?
A: A bunch of Heinlein, some Ursula LeGuin.
B: I never liked Heinlein - thought he was a sexist pig. I love LeGuin though.
The problem with asking a lot of questions is that there's unequal emotional investment between a question and an answer: the answerer is putting themselves out there a lot more than the questioner. (This is one reason why he who asks the questions controls the conversation.) If you're trying to build a relationship, this feels very awkward. Instead, the point of most conversations is to find & build a connection between the two people, one that lets both of them feel safe simply volunteering information and knowing that the other person is interested. By relating topics back to yourself, you a.) give both parties a chance to ask questions, and b.) show that you're in the same boat as them, and so they can feel free to open up to you.
Notice that conversations between close friends rarely have questions - they consist of people taking turns volunteering new information, often rather animatedly if they have good rapport with each other. Also look at Hacker News comment threads: people rarely ask direct questions, they just contribute additional information along the same lines as the original comment.
It might be a bit dangerous with some kind of people: when I'm telling I'm doing something the answer would always be a mixture of 'Of course not, the results are nowhere as good as they should be' and 'Of course yes, or I wouldn't do it'. Either component a bit angry.
And I presume there are other such people in the industry.
Why must an engineer not be socially inclined? Must curiosity and social aptitude be mutually exclusive?
My experience with developer-type leaders and sales-type leaders really breaks down to this: the developer builds a solid foundation and finds the product-market fit for it, the sales-oriented person projects the future they want others to believe in. One is slightly more logic-based, the other emotional. Some people can do both. That's rare.
I've found that theres a certain "turning off your brain" that has to occur to be socially successful. Most technically inclined people have a habit of using their brains a lot. Not that it's totally impossible, but it's hard. I'm a socially awkward technology person. When the moon is aligned properly, I can function fairly normally in social situations, but most of time I over-think too much and come off as weird.
"Turning off your brain" is a very condescending way to refer to people with skills you don't possess or understand.
(To borrow terminology from "Thinking, Fast and Slow"):
In my experience, more socially-inclined people are able to rely easily on System 1 -- whereas the more awkward ("engineer" types) attempt to engage System 2 continually, and thus the experience of talking with them often feels effortful and lacking in "flow."
"Turning off your brain" sounds like a good summary of that. I don't think one need a particular "skill" to act stereotypically, subconsciously, emotionaly, automatically, at least... If one is inhibited and thinking too much, just give it some wine.
I'd consider it a pretty safe bet that most people who frequent HN are at least superficially familiar with the material. This is from the first result for a relevant Google query:
In the book's first section, Kahneman describes the two different ways the brain forms thoughts:
System 1: Fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, subconscious
System 2: Slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious
Really? When I am not socially inclined, I tend to just keep quiet and for me, that is most comforting(though I'll admit some people find it odd).
On the other hand, I ask the most questions when I am genuinely curious about something in which case I am inclined to talk out of natural curiosity than social necessity.
As someone who generally doesn't enjoy smalltalk, I wonder what is this "ask-a-million questions" technique. Is it just asking random questions and seeking what comes up?
People usually like you, if you are interested in a topic that they like. As many geeks have natural curiosity and can be genuinely interested in many things, you can use this as a way to do smalltalk if you have hard time to enjoy the smalltalk: ask questions about topics the other person is interested in (be it their work, fashion, cars, music, tech, whatever) and let the other person do the talking: they enjoy their time, you learn about new topics, and you don't feel uncomfortable about social situations.
