I too am clearly on the quiet side for a male. I appeared to be mute as a teenager and young adult. I agree sometimes people don't know what to make of someone who isn't talkative. I worked on it a few ways.

One thing I did to get experience with superficial talk was to sort of compliment people on what they seemed to value. I would try to take the focus off me by getting them to talk about themselves.

Simple things. If someone was watching a football game---you could say "seems like you really have a passion for this game ".They may then start rambling on about it. That person realizes you noticed them and what they value. They feel at ease now. They realize you may be quiet---but you're not hostile.

With women, unfortunately it does get trickier. In general I've found that they expect us to lead the way with dialogue, especially in the beginning. It takes practice. You can practice superficial dialogue with women in places like restaurants, fast food places, where the meeting will be brief.

There's nothing wrong with being quiet but if you want to be able to talk alittle easier --I think it will just take some practice and exposure.