> In contrast with them, I feel like a weirdo, mumbling and struggling to come up with anything interesting to say.

I doubt you're a weirdo. It sounds like you have navigated through a set of priorities that positioned you as more of a social introvert.

It also sounds like you are in search of a new skillset or social system though?

I am a personality expert and trainer by vocation, and find that it's even easier to relate socially if one is more interested in other people in general, through one's preferred lenses and tools. Not all of us are interested in others for the standard socializing reasons, by default, and there could be many good reasons for that. One of the best reasons is that you have access to different psychological tools that are less social by nature.

Various personality models from FFM to Temperament can be pretty fun as a way of figuring people out like a puzzle, and a lot of people enjoy talking about themselves when asked gently about their work environment, how they like their work these days, if they commute in or live close by, etc. Some of these same simple questions can even help one to really understand another a person's model of life and even their idea of reality.

If someone acts informational, it can also be fun to try asking them about theory, see if they have more of an HN-comments mindset. I had a radiologist get all geeky on me once, in response to a simple question, and the conversation got way more informational and also more socially awkward from there. The guy followed me out of the office to continue our convo. It was pretty funny.

A while back I became a handwriting analyst for fun and some time after, I started a conversation with my dentist about a specific part of his handwriting that struck my interest. Within seconds we were talking about his hobbies like fantasy gaming and fantasy novels, which is also a shared interest, so it was easy to build rapport from there.

(The above may seem to fall into specific advice though; if so sorry about that; it's part of my story ;-))

> If you're an IT nerd spending better part of your life in a cave, well, that's who you are, no matter how much you make, what car you drive, etc.

That could be one interpretation, though I'd add that it's a bit more of A) an outside-in perspective, and B) a hyperbolic one--but another interpretation could be that you're an intelligent, healthy person who knows their limits and personal preferences.

The outside-in aspect is important because some people will feel a lot of pressure to be demonstrative, in a sense, in their social lifestyle. So when they start to get social, they end up doing so in a showy way, by avoiding some part of themselves that they don't think is good enough. This type of effort can easily backfire and often doesn't get them the results they want.

Often these people give a lot of attention to intuiting what others will think, or like, or appreciate. But this gift can be dangerous if brought directly from one's inner world to the outside world, because any subjective-perceptive mode generally has a level of quality matched to one's subjective past experience. This means if you've been mainly listening to your own ideas for a long time, those ideas or perceptions may not work so well in a social context.

Unfortunately quite often this same person will navigate into social relationships with a fear of stereotype, and paint the life they're moving away from as some kind of comically awkward life, which can actually be an example of a tendency that is wise to avoid during this kind of life move.

It's usually more helpful all around to talk about specifics one doesn't like about social situations from their past, and to attempt to describe or spec out the kind of person that you want to become.

The outside-in attention to personal performance/stage role (so to speak) also helps individuals build up a perception of social dominance or prowess in a lot of ways. But this can also become a critical blindspot (display and prowess as opposed to e.g. social contribution and dependability) and lead to social blunder after blunder. That's just one important reason to understand oneself better as part of exploring this kind of transition.

I had a similar general life trajectory that led to me becoming a trainer and coach. I used to do a lot more corporate training work, and started to get inquiries from international clientele.

It was fun to see people laugh at jokes or tell me they enjoyed presentations. I enjoyed making new friends from all over the world, and meeting up with them in person. But after tracking my energy metrics for a while, I decided that the subjective side of life was more interesting and kind to me in general.

It's nice to be able to get social when needed, but overall I find that I get way more leverage, enjoyment, and energetic rewards while working in this inside-mode, and only occasionally transitioning to the outside.

Good luck to you on your journey.