Try instead to 'ping' the other person. Once you've communicated a concept, ask "does that make sense?" or something similar, and see what they say. (This also has a way of forcing people to pay closer attention to you, since passive listening may not be enough... I have this habit. Is it Dark Arts?)
(You're not persuading someone to accept a proposition as true, so I don't think it would fall under the definition of Dark Arts. I'd class it as 'potential social skill', similar to those above.)
Edit - many apologies to anyone that feels that this discussion was a waste of time.
I just ran across an article (http://techno-anthropology.blogspot.com/2011/04/rough-guide-to-social-skills-for.html) on Hacker News that gives the barest minimum of a guide for social interaction. Unfortunately this isn't the high-quality advice you need to really handle social situations, though it will help with a few of the worst problems.
A few other rules that will help:
On the physical side:
This is a long list, and it isn't even close to complete.
I'm linking to http://lesswrong.com/lw/372/defecting_by_accident_a_flaw_common_to_analytical/ at the suggestion of David Gerard. It has a lot of deeper discussion into why this is worth knowing.