Exactly what are social skills?

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Aside from what everyone already mentioned...

Social skills is a multidimensionally thing -- one has the ability to level themselves to others, or make others level themselves to another.

In friendlier settings, people would level onto each other.
But in a more hostile environment, people generally don't. It's either them or you -- a sum zero game.


Social skills is the ability to move that level in real time... Whether it's yours or someone else's.
It doesn't necessarily had to do with words or sets of etiquettes and rules, but the common mode of communication and those rules are relevant to make them move said level.


Many autistics other people think it's about leveling themselves to NTs. I say it is not.

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It's like describing the color blue to a blind man. We can intellectually try to comprehend social skills. And I think everyone has some social skills to some extent. How skillful one is varies. Average Aspie tends to be much worse at social skills than majority of people (the NTs).

Social skills are something people on the spectrum cannot understand and they know it, and NTs can understand but usually cannot explain.

Social skills are something that can be described and defined (There are plenty of written descriptions anywhere and everywhere you look, literally since mankind has had the ability to write stuff down), but actually DOING is a different matter, and if you don't know, you don't know.

I like to think I have some social skills, but they are pretty lackluster. I used to say I am pretty bad at socializing until you get to know me, then I become pretty good at it, but honestly I can't say that for certain either. I do a lot of pretending... I pull up skills from a learned tool kit to socialize as needed, but my box of skills doesn't have that many tools. I am just good at making it seem like I have more skills than I do. It is like using a hammer and a wrench for literally EVERY job. Sure, it may be a good hammer and a good wrench, and I am super good at figuring out how to deal with screws with them, but somebody with an entire set of tools will always do better.

Which is a testament to how resourceful I can be in using one or two somewhat lackluster skills in ways that make it seem like I have more skills than I do. But the thing is, if I had more skills, I would not struggle to socialize on first meeting, or the second, or the 15th... or basically all the times I struggle with socialization until somebody else actually tries to socialize with me (I really dislike doing the social stuff until I get to know people, and I don't like getting to know people, so people have to try to get to know me to get past that barrier).

well, anyway, if that makes sense. I feel like I am rambling now.

The concept of "Etiquette" is related to social skills

https://businessculture.org/northern-eu ... etiquette/

https://businessculture.org/western-eur ... n-germany/

https://www.globig.co/blog/a-quick-guid ... -in-mexico

https://businessculture.org/southern-eu ... -in-italy/

https://asialinkbusiness.com.au/india/c ... -etiquette

https://bizfluent.com/about-6167549-bus ... e-usa.html

The ability to recognize where everyone else's toes are before you step on them.

^ LOL

I feel like it's, mostly, the ability to make another person or animal comfortable.

Though there is frequently an element of social Darwinism and the ability to be canny/"clever"----which I find irritating.

Yep, I do believe that "social skills" involve the ability to make, say, a dog or cat comfy.