Maybe you're talking with nincompoops. But maybe -- and perhaps more likely -- you're just a terrible communicator. Perhaps you have genuinely poor written co

Maybe you're talking with nincompoops. But maybe -- and perhaps more likely -- you're just a terrible communicator. Perhaps you have genuinely poor written communication skills, and are incapable of holding a conversation without the proper social cues that non-programmers or other coworkers need to feel like you're not exerting your ego. Communication skills, social skills, soft skills, they are all skills. They're not things that necessarily come naturally to people, and they're things you can practice, and things you can get better at. I can't think of one good reason to have a casual conversation with anyone and mention GitHub. The only situation is if I'm a GitHub salesperson, or we're having a very non-casual conversation comparing tools. Those aren't normal conversations. GitHub is not a tool that normal people use. Suggesting it to someone who is not a professional developer demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of your audience, of their skill set, of their engagement level, etc. By definition, being a developer takes you out of "normal," so you're not really well-suited to judge how other people are receiving you. This is why you feel like it takes "large expenditures of energy on my part" to talk with them. When, strictly speaking, no-one has to talk with you. Talking is entirely about the other person. Growing up, I did speech contests, which teach you how to present and how to deliver an argument and how to articulate your ideas well in a short span. Something like Toastmasters would help you practice that today. That doesn't help you social situations, or in professional relationship building like business requires. A friend of mine has a coworker who is socially rude. The coworker constantly interrupts, and their voice gets higher and higher pitched and they talk faster and faster when they think you're not "getting it." The problem is, all the senior developers "get it," he's just so enamored with his idea that he's not seeing the practical issues. The coworker is really looking for agreement and praise, not discussion and critique; his statements are leading, and his questions are rhetorical. My friend finally sat this coworker down and explained how he needed to learn how to act like a normal human being having a normal human conversation. My friend now physically intervenes in conversations and points out every instance of verbal malfeasance, and the coworker is learning to control himself and convey his ideas reasonably, to think before he responds, and to actually consider someone else's perspective for once. This friend, years ago, would stand over my shoulder and edit my emails with me. My friend doesn't scale, but maybe there's someone you trust -- not a programmer, a normal person -- who can do things like edit your emails for you -- that's what editors are for -- and who can shadow you in conversations and talk with you about them afterwards.