There is a girl I like at work (I will call her Jessica) and whenever I attempt to talk to her, the conversations are somewhat difficult. This is sort of a follow up to a previous post I made. I think Jessica likes me as a person and she is generally friendly when we pass each other in the hallway but when we are in the same room together and I try to have a conversation with her, it doesn't often go smoothly. I work in a retail technology store and my first conversation with Jessica went pretty well. I asked her about her position at the store and told her I was interested in working in her department (she works in a department that services computers and provides various tech services) and asked her about her job and her experience with the store. It was a good first conversation and there seemed to be some chemistry there (not necessarily romantic but just interpersonal chemistry). Over the next few weeks after our first conversation, I was working as a cashier at the store and had a few smaller conversations with Jessica when I cashed her out for some things she was buying. These conversations were a little more difficult and I started to notice that Jessica definitely has some social anxiety and she didn't seem to feel as comfortable as during our first conversation. Although, Jessica did eventually inform me that some positions were opening up in here department because she knew I was interested in working in her department.

One night when I worked until the store was closing, I walked into Jessica's department to get the vacuum to vacuum my department and Jessica was there so I simply said "hi, jessica, how are you?" and she sort of reluctantly turned around and said "i'm okay". I noticed when she said "I'm okay", her mouth was literally shaking. She was obviously pretty nervous to talk and probably was caught off guard by me entering her department. I initially thought she just didn't want me there but then she started a conversation and told me that she had just gotten over a cold that she got from going to a video game convention. Her body language seemed like she wanted to talk as she was maintaining eye contact and her body was facing me directly. This then led to me asking her about video game conventions, gaming youtubers she watches, various other things, etc. The conversation went okay, but I noticed when I would ask here things like which youtubers she watches, she would give me very vague answers like "all kinds" and she had a hard time giving me specific answers.

After that conversation, I didn't work with Jessica for about 2 months because we worked different shifts but recently our shifts have started to overlap again and I had a chance to talk to her for a few minutes the other week when she was in the break room. She was playing a Nintendo Switch game that I own and when I walked into the break room I said "hey, I own that game" and started talking about things I like about the game. Again, Jessica seemed nervous that I was in the room and caught off guard but she was still friendly. Jessica had just gotten back from another video game convention so I asked her how it was and she said it was good. Then I asked her if there were any highlights and she simply said "no". I was getting those vague, short answers again so I tried asking more questions and asked here what kinds of things there are to do at the video game convention she attended and and how many people were there. This was when Jessica seemed to get a little irritable. Jessica sort of responded to me like I was stupid and the answers were obvious and they were obvious and I basically knew the answers but I was just trying to make conversation. For example, when I asked Jessica how many people attended the convention, with an attitude, she said "there were a lot of people, it's the biggest video game convention on the east coast". It almost seemed like Jessica was getting defensive. Maybe she thought that I was testing her with my questions and didn't want to look stupid; I'm not sure. This is where our conversation ended and I had to get back to work.

When I observe Jessica interact with some of the other guys at work, she doesn't appear to be nervous at all and is quite talkative. I actually happened to be in the store's main office the other day working on one of the computers and Jessica walked in to talk to one of managers who was also in the room who is around our age and the conversation between them flowed completely naturally and she was acting like her natural self. They started talking about how she moved from her home state to our area because of someone she was dating and revealing a lot more personal info than she ever revealed to me. It was interesting because even though I was in the room, she was not nervous and she wasn't afraid to say these things and act like her natural self while I was in the room.

All of this brings me to what I don't understand; are my conversations with Jessica difficult because we don't have chemistry or is there some other reason? I don't feel that nervous when I talk to her but she definitely gets nervous around me and I'm not sure what is causing that. I'm not sure if it is here own anxiety or something I am doing to make her feel uncomfortable. There are some girls I talk to where conversations are easy and they flow naturally and I seem to connect easily with them. I don't think Jessica dislikes me as a person because she is still generally friendly to me.

I'm not trying to date Jessica; I'm just trying build up my social skills with women in general and trying to understand what is going on. Could I be asking Jessica too many questions at once and maybe that is irritating her and coming across as me being intrusive? How do I make Jessica feel more comfortable around me? Does this sound like a lack of chemistry between us?