The author sort of conflates two things in this section of the article; lack of interest and lack of knowledge.
The author's lack of interest in drinking adventures is actually their faux pas in my opinion if it's a story from a friend wanting to share a story. My friends have tons of interests I do not share, but I love to hear them talk about their interests because it's something new and they're my friends. I would not be as open to listening about beading or car mechanics from someone I'm not close to since I lack the knowledge to really participate and I just don't really care about someone I don't know very well and their hobbies unless they're a really engaging story teller (then I'm all ears)
The author's article in general sets a lot of weird social rules that they seem to prefer but this is not really some universal standard, it's just some social rules that the author abides by and is positioning as a good set of rules to follow.
Some of the advice is okay; if someone is visibly bored and not engaging, don't keep going on with the same topic, switch it up or move on.
Other advice is weird, like the positive disagreement; disagreement is fun! You have a chance to learn something new and as long as you aren't positioning your entire self worth on a position, probably it's a fun discussion. I disagree with people in a friendly way all the time, most importantly my friends, and we're better for it, not worse. We say how we feel and feel more.relaxed that when there is a disagreement, we understand it's normal and natural.
The article weirdly tries to position some nice advice, but I think it does more confusion than good.