Networking without feeling pushy, marketing coordinator here

I want to talk to people in a new field but I hate cold messages. I would rather hear the honest version than the polite one. Some people reply with short answers. How do you phrase the request?

Follow up with a thank-you and a short update. One of my chats led to a referral a month later.

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it 14 months ago, and it settled down once I kept a simple log of every call and form.