Apropos username. ;-)
OK, so, I've always been kinda cerebral, so communicating with people was something I had to "figure out". I'm not so much that way any more, but I do remember most of what I did to learn it.
It's definitely more about feelings than facts -- purely factual statements make a lot of people turn off to you -- but it's also about empathy. Not a new-age touchy-feely kind of empathy, but merely the ability to quickly understand the other person's habits, backgrounds, emotions, and personality. Think of it as learning to communicate in a different language, like speaking Russian to a Russian.
I studied some psychology, and although on the whole I think it was not terribly valuable, it did help me typecast people a little bit faster. For example, I tend to notice whether a person talks about what they think, or what they feel. If they say that they feel like x or y is right or wrong, then they're talking from an intuitive, emotional standpoint, and being all cerebral around them isn't going to get you very far.
There's also body language, the kinds of jokes a person tells, the sorts of phrases they use, and the dialect of language they use. I don't for example talk to boulderers the same way I'm talking now ... unless I want them to laugh at me. :-)
It started out as something I had to think about and study, but now it's intuitive and I don't think of it the same way anymore. It's just something I do.
I think this is a really valuable thing for other people to do; it would help communication between people a lot. There would be fewer misunderstandings.
Or, as my much-more-personable-and-outgoing girlfriend who again is reading over my shoulder says, "Well, yeah, it teaches you how to listen."
Guess I still have a lot more to learn.