Interestingly, this is what the book "How to Win Friends and Influence Others" gets at. While it's ostensibly a sales book, the very basis is how to be genuinely nice to people so they want to talk to you and be around you. And from those relationships come sales opportunities.

As another person for whom relation stuff does not come naturally, this was incredibly helpful because little pieces of advise really do work, because they really are nice things to do/say.

A favorite example of mine, when starting to talk to someone who probably already doesn't care for you is to find something -- anything -- that it's clear they like or chose, which you also happen to like, and pay it a genuine positive complement. And perhaps talk about it a little bit.

I've heard a lot of negativity around this book, and haven't read it yet. Did you feel like it was positive in the sense of genuine niceness, or negative in the sense of trying to be manipulative, etc.?