I find the idea that once can just consciously decide to "take a genuine interest in" something to be entirely alien. Is this something that most people are able to do? I can direct my attention toward something, but that doesn't make boring subjects interesting.

I've found that few things that people are passionate about are truly boring, especially to curious hacker types like myself.

The difficult part is to find that part of the subject, even if it's just a kernel, that triggers the interest you potentially have. This can take a while, sometimes. Perhaps reading up on how to interview people can help in this regard (it's helped me!).

In my case, but I suspect this is true for most humans, my 'genuine interest' activates once the 'human interest' angle, to put it vaguely, starts appearing. Probably because that's easier to relate to.

I hate talking about football, for example, but I've had wonderful conversations with football fans once they started sharing personal stories of things they experienced, adventures they had, or stories of how they used to go to games with their fathers, and how this was one of the few ways in which to connect with them, etc. In the process, I learned some interesting things about football too, but that wasn't really the point for me.

Over time some of these football fans became close friends of mine. We don't talk about football much nowadays, because it's clear that I find the topic mind-numbingly boring. But we do still talk about dads, and that's very valuable.

For me, the thing that made it work was when I noticed that I could apply the same impulse that led me to spend an hour wandering on wikipedia and tvtropes. I noticed that I tended to mostly read about history, so in conversations I started to ask people thinks that would get them to tell me the story of how they got interested in something or to tell some piece of the subject's history.

You are guessing that a line of conversation will stay boring, but you don't really know. Suspension of disbelief should be easy since you don't actually know what will happen. If you are interested in good things then you can be interested in seeing whether a conversation could turn out good.

This incidentally relates to one of OP's suggestions: don't assume that you'll keep feeling the way you feel forever.

This doesn't describe the experience I was getting at. I'm talking about actual conversations that I routinely have, not hypothetical ones I'm avoiding. It usually takes very little time to get to a point where the conversation just doesn't continue; I'm not trying to end it, it just sort of runs out of steam before it gets anywhere interesting. The disconnect might be that I don't seem to get any kind of mental/emotional jolt out of social interaction per se, which seems to be unusual.

Oh, you just have to bust through that. Say something else. Ask a question about a different part of their life.

I tend to look for things I can relate to in the how or why of the hobby. Sometimes I strike upon something totally oddball that makes me ask the person many questions. It might seem like a weird tangent to the person, but it does keep the conversation going for a while. At the end of that, you've at least had that long of a conversation.

you are guessing that a line of conversation will turn out to be boring, but you don't really know. Suspension of disbelief should be easy since you don't actually know what will happen.

This incidentally relates to one of OP's suggestions: don't assume that you'll keep feeling the way you feel forever.

"You must be genuine" is a double bind. Being genuine is something that cannot be forced by coercion

Maybe you would relate to other people better if you tried to find out _why_ they they find things interesting that you find boring.

You're assuming a lot. I do try, but I usually can't maintain enough interest/engagement to even get to the point of finding out the things people find interesting (apart from sports, but that's usually more about team rivalries and player/coach gossip).

Another good one, especially if you're talking to someone you've met before but can't remember what they do for a living: "So, what's on the cards for you this year?"

Gives them scope to talk about a new role you hadn't heard about, their regular job, a holiday they're going on, renovations at home, etc.