You can go ahead an read all the self help/ self development/ self improvement sites out there for tips on how to have better conversations and you’ll notice one thing: they all teach how to fake having a conversation.
Their advice go from looking the other person in the eyes to nodding from time to time, repeating or rephrasing what has been said, topics to make the conversation better and so on. These are all wonderful tips, but when you are engaged in a meaningful conversation, you already do most of them without having to force yourself. These come natural to you.
You don’t need to learn how to be better at having a conversations, but how to approach conversations in order to make them better. And it’s not about faking them. It doesn’t matter if you look the other person in the eyes or rephrase or follow any other tips out there. If this was true, Stephen Hawking would be the worst person to have a conversation with and everyone would avoid him, but in reality it’s the opposite.
You aren’t good at having a conversation because you don’t want to have that conversation in the first place. If you want a meaningful conversation make sure you really want to be in that conversation. A conversations requires at least two people genuinely interested in what’s being discussed in order for it to be truly a conversation.
It all comes down to this: enter every conversation assuming that you have something to learn or don’t do it at all. Each person knows at least one thing that you don’t. It’s up to you if you want to find out what that is.