[jmye]

I genuinely care about my friend. He's really into bee-keeping. I don't care at all about bees. But he cares about it, so I ask questions because I care about him. I have now learned enough about his bee-keeping to be legitimately interested in whether, say, his bees survived the winter or to be upset with him that an invading swarm killed them.

The simple answer to your question, I think, is that you probably can't "make yourself" care about a specific thing at the drop of the hat. But if you care deeply about other things, especially tangential things, it's relatively easy to learn to care about new things you learn about.

[throwaway2037]

Without doubting anything about your intent, I feel like I am the guy who shows interest in other people, but other people show very little interest in me. Frequently, I am listening to someone talk about someone they care about, and I attentively listen, and try to ask friendly, encouraging questions. At some point, my mind begins to think: "Can I just replace myself with a cardboard cut-out and will they keep talking about themselves?" Sadly, I think the answer is yes. I don't know what to do about it.