social anxiety from the comfort of my very own room

I've been playing with Façade this weekend, thanks to Jeremy. It's an interactive story where you've been invited over by your friends, Grace and Trip, then when you get there, they're arguing. You can talk to them by typing and they'll respond if they understand, otherwise they'll just continue their argument (or stare at you blankly). As you can imagine, listening to a couple argue isn't the most comfortable social situation to begin with, but it made me feel even more socially inept that most real life interactions (which is saying something).

I wasn't so worried about saying something inappropriate, since I don't care if badly-animated, computer-generated characters hate me, but you're supposed to be able to influence whether Grace and Trip stay together or break up, so I was conscious of trying not to provoke more arguments. My biggest problem, though, was getting them to understand what I was saying at all. It took me quite a long time to even get into the apartment the first time, since Trip just kept staring at me and making random awkward-pause-filling noises. It seemed rude to just walk past him when he hadn't invited me in (okay, I guess I was worried about what animated characters thought of me...). He didn't respond when I asked how he was, or how work was or even asked if I could come in.

I don't want to go through what I tried saying, because I don't want you real people to see my awkward attempts at conversation. It was basically my worst social nightmare - trying to make conversation and having every attempt be ignored with disdainful looks (I don't know if the expressions on the characters' faces are meant to match their emotions, but I was certainly reading disdain into them). In my first couple of attempts I basically gave up and just tried to provoke them into responding to me, by moving their stuff around, insinuating that they were depressed and calling Trip a jerk. I got a response, at least, but they kicked me out.

My last attempt was more successful. After a pause where I thought the game was broken because they both just stared at me, blinking, for at least ten minutes (while I played with their stuff, suggested they were having affairs etc and eventually went off to other windows), they finally starting talking about their marriage. I assumed I was supposed to counsel them somehow, but I had no idea what to say that wouldn't annoy them so I mostly didn't say anything, and apparently that was enough for them to work things out by themselves.

I'm not sure which explanation seems worse: that I was was completely unable to make conversation, or that the failings of the game's AI could so easily make me feel bad about my social skills.