Question about social skills

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I started to understand social cues, but I lack social-emotional reciprocity to a mild degree.



Are there any tips to improve my social-emotional reciprocity?



Is social-emotional reciprocity a social skill as well?

According to ChatGPT, this is a simple example of social-emotional reciprocity when it's done right:

Sarah: Hey Mark, how are you doing today?
Mark: I'm doing alright, thanks for asking. How about you?
Sarah: I'm doing pretty well too. I wanted to check in on you because I noticed you seemed a bit down yesterday.
Mark: Yeah, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with work, but I appreciate you noticing. Thanks for asking.
Sarah: Of course, anytime. If you ever need to talk about it, I'm here to listen.
Mark: Thanks, Sarah, that means a lot. And how about you? Is everything going okay on your end?
Sarah: Yeah, things are going alright. Nothing too crazy. But thanks for asking, I appreciate it.
Mark: Anytime, Sarah. It's important to look out for each other.

In this conversation, both Sarah and Mark demonstrate social-emotional reciprocity by showing concern for each other's well-being, expressing empathy, and offering support. They take turns acknowledging each other's emotions and offering to listen or help if needed, creating a reciprocal exchange of care and understanding.

I wouldn't knock the example too much, but it's it's hard to know how to apply it in real life. If I say "Hey [name], how are you doing today?" I tend to get no reply, or just "Good," and no thanks for my effort. And I often forget their names. I've done the "thanks, that means a lot" thing in response to "you know where I am" or "don't forget I'm thinking of you," but again that doesn't happen much, and I think sometimes it's not a global offer of a friendly ear.

The example seems a tad wooden to me. I think real social interaction is much more complicated. The presumption that everybody is really kind and caring all the time, isn't always true.

Reminds me of the thing about it being important to say "I love you" - I just don't relate to that much. It does no harm if I happen to remember it, but I judge people's love for me on what they do, not their self-labelling, and in the same way I expect them to judge how much I care about them on what I do for them.

But like I say, I wouldn't want to knock it too much. I'd probably need a highly-trained coach talking me through real conversations via a concealed earpiece. I think I mostly need advanced or intermediate-level interventions, or "post mortems" on conversations I've had.

We do struggle with emotional reciprocity, so it's a shame there isn't more high-quality advice out there. As usual with ASD, most of the stuff is for children.

One thing I do is I'll bring up things they spoke about before. Like, "You said your shoulder hurt last week. How are you feeling now?" Or, "Are you still going to the flea market? I remember you got a good deal there a while back."

It's making conversation while also showing you care enough to remember their words.

Thanks!

I understand social cues, after therapy and reading body and facial language books, but I lack some aspects of cognitive empathy to some milder degree and feel like an alien.

One way could be to make guesses about how people are feeling, this encourages them to open up more about how they are really feeling.

Someone: “I’m going on holiday next week”
You: “sounds good, you must be really excited”
Someone: “yeah but I am also feeling stressed about going to the airport [conversation continues…]

That makes sense.