I've been pretty oblivious my whole life. This was almost exclusively because of laziness. I've been changing myself so that I'm not such a lazy and selfish person, and it's going quite well. I noticed recently that people behave more like me than I behave like them, so I guess I've got a naturally strong frame, but the problem is my conversational skills are lacking. For example I was on my way to barn work for an animal science class (i'm in college, this class is about 20 girls, 5 boys) getting a ride to the barn(i called shotgun, tall girl sitting behind me) the girl driving kept talking in a selfish and insecure way about how easy some classes that the other girls were taking were for her, and how hard others are going to be. I didn't really give two shits about the conversation, but i notied therewas a bit of tension i felt i should have been in control of. I need to learn to be a better conversationalist.

Another thing happened on the way home on the bus a girl sat across from me, we chatted a bit about her bike and locks and japanese frames and some other stuff, she was doing most of the talking, but eventually it just petered out and I ended up staring out the window with her looking down most of the time. I keep letting the conversation die because I run out of things to say.

All in all though I think I've got the right attitude, because I require people to actually say what they want. for example a girl was closing up the building i was waiting in for the bus. She said the place was closing, i said okay, she apologized a bunch, i insinuated that i was meeting a friend, she offered to let me use her cell phone to call them so we could meet elsewhere(i figure there's some connection I could have made here) I declined, cause i was a bit pissy she was kicking me out, she opened the door and apoligized about 10 more times, i grinned and said it's okay and left.

So yeah, thoughts, comments, guidance?

Edit: Chaggy mentioned there being tons of books on the aspects of social dynamics I'm working on. Here's a list of books I've got that were recommended elsewhere:

How to win friends and influence people; What every BODY is saying; Magic bullets; Make her chase you; Frogs into princes; The juggler method; Body language by Allan pease; Emotions revealed, Telling lies, and Unmasking the face all by Paul eckman; How to read body language; How to get the truth out of anyone; Masters of body language; Non verbal communication; Reading body language for seduction; and The science of influence.

Any suggestions on new books to add or a recommended order to these books would be a huge help, thanks!

I've also been using Omegle to practice some limited parts of my social interaction, but the nature of the thing prevents it from being useful for much, any suggestions on that would also be appreciated.