My last few jobs have required me to build and maintain client relationships. I'm an introvert and while I can easily contact people to get questions answered or have them show me issues they have and need documented, I'm not very good at the chatty part of the relationships. People generally like me, but I have difficulty going to them just to chat about personal stuff because I feel like I'm rudely interrupting their work.

It seems to me this aspect of the job requires kind of a salesman-like ability to "schmooze" and ignore signs of annoyance. As an introvert, I'm also a big watcher of people. I admire people who are gregarious and I've noticed that the most gregarious people tend to not notice if they're being a mild irritant and don't care. Also they don't seem to notice when people mock them behind their backs. While I'm friendly and approachable, I'm not that kind of outgoing person. As a result I think that I don't do enough relationship-building.

Does anybody else here have the same issue? Aside from forcing myself to try to be gregarious, how can I do better?