How to know if someone doesn't want to talk

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I've been trying to make friends and improve my social skills for a couple of weeks now, and have been putting in a huge amount of effort to change how I talk to people and to avoid saying geeky stuff(its harder for me than one might assume).

I've read that conversation is all about reciprocation and asking people questions. I've read that its an untold social rule that when someone asks you a question, you ask another question in return after you answer their question, and that asking questions is the only way to keep a conversation moving. Is this correct?

What's happening to me is that whenever I talk to anybody, its me asking all the questions and them giving all the answers, they aren't asking me questions in return, or say if I don't initiate conversation with them for a week (after talking regularly for a week), they don't initiate conversation either. Does this indicate that they really couldn't be less interested in talking to me and I am just bothering them whenever I try talking to them?

FYI: We're talking via text, if that makes any difference

Try asking the other person about the quality of their answers ("Do you like X more than Y?" "Do you do Q more often than Z?" "What would you prefer more to do?"). This will help encourage the other person to engage the conversation and start answering in specifics. In speech, it is called comparing and contrasting a topic.

Short, one-word answers and long pauses between your questions and your friend's answers probably mean that the friend isn't interested in the topic. In that case, ask your friend something totally random ("Have you ever been in a water fight with monkeys?"). Ask what your friend's favorite movie, video game or food is. Get your friend talking about his or her life. When he or she starts doing that, you can ask follow-up questions to keep him or her talking.

I get the same thing all the time. I ask everybody how they are doing and almost never get it back. I am really suprised when someone asks me back.

In my experience their are just people who aren't talkers. You can do what you want but you can't get a conversation going. It doesn't necessarily mean they are not interested, they just don't know what to say or just don't want to speak at that moment.

I am someone who always has something to talk about and had it happen a few times where people just almost fell asleep listening to me rant about something in the news. They just can't keep up. Makes me laugh every time.

There is nothing wrong with not talking sometimes. Just chill out and maybe he will start a conversation.

I hate people that only say yes and no all the time and never specify what they mean. Horrible! I just tell them what they mean or if they don't want to talk and most of the time that scares them a bit and they start talking. I should interrogate people for a living

Edit: Asking strangers where they come from always works and people just can't stop after that.