My wife is amazing. She can walk into a Wal-Mart, and within minutes some stranger will be telling her their life story.
I, on the other hand, suffer from Programmer's Disease. I can walk into a crowded room, approach someone and try to strike up a conversation and have the discussion killed in 3 minutes.
I try to improve. I really do. I think it's a gift we're born with.
For me and my wife that works basically the same, but I have found method to the madness.
1. She loves it when I come to save her when the tone of the spontaneous discussion is not to her liking and nothing kills said discussions faster then me participating.
2. When I strike it, my conversations tends to be very subject focused and will leave me and the other person smarter and more informed.
So what I do now is either I stand beside her and try to enjoy the (for me) meaningless chatter (I really like the high pitched voices of socially engaged people), or I will try to find that one other weirdo in the room who holds a ton of knowledge in an area that I'm completely blank about and suck as much as possible information out of them.
That is where my 35 years of continence improvement have led me. YMMV.
One can never have too much of either form of improvement. Also, I am the same way at parties. As an introvert my battery gets charged fairly quickly. My wife is the extrovert.
My mom has the same thing. Random people just start telling her everything about their life, because she appears open and friendly.
If i'm in public, I usually look miserable (RBF) and have a very specific goal in mind. People don't just walk up to me because its obvious I'm not going to be receptive.
I, on the other hand, suffer from Programmer's Disease. I can walk into a crowded room, approach someone and try to strike up a conversation and have the discussion killed in 3 minutes.
I try to improve. I really do. I think it's a gift we're born with.