It doesn't take interpersonal interaction skills to be genuinely interested in what a person has to say. And if you can't manage even that much, trying to appear interesting is not going to help. Just give up and be yourself, awkwardness and all.
Being interesting is nothing more than projecting what you're interested in in such a way that it brings your audience along for the ride. The awkwardness is mostly you second guessing what the other person thinks about you.
If you don't project what you're interested in, how are you ever going to know if they're interested in it? I've generally found that even the most arcane things I find fascination with, that you'd probably think people would think are boring can spawn the most intriguing conversations. If you project that fascination, that sense of wonder and awe, the thing, the grain of the idea that most excites you about it, when you get excited about it, people (in my experience) tend to come along for the ride. Before you know it, 15 minutes is 4 hours and all that stuff you wanted to get done this evening is gonna have to wait until tomorrow.
You might as well tell a blind man the key is to use his retina.
Some of us find success at this sort of interpersonal interaction to be well-nigh impossible.