This doesn't encompass the issue the author is describing. There's an axis of personality that looks something like "intellectual curiosity", which exists indep

This doesn't encompass the issue the author is describing. There's an axis of personality that looks something like "intellectual curiosity", which exists independently of social skills, and isn't filled simply by having social contact with arbitrary people. It's no different from the many other axes along which people find their personalities compatible with each other. The challenge with this framing is that you can be too narrow-minded about it, deciding that you can deduce what someone has to contribute based on your first impression of them. In my experience, the tendency towards curiosity exists independently of class, education level, and even intelligence (though the correlation is stronger here). But once you get past the smalltalk phase that you describe, it's a pretty easy quality to suss out. It's a very real, very significant gap in one's social life if you are on one end of this axis and none of your friends are. I found myself incidentally in this position a few years ago, and taking steps to consciously shape my social environment and focus on seeking out more intellectually-curious friends was very worth it.