What defines "social skilledness"?

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This semester, I'm taking a class in Sociology which seems to be completely changing my viewpoint of the world. In it, I learned of a theory called "Symbolic Interactionism", which suggests that humans interact through a meaning of shared, arbitrary symbols in order to communicate. Examples of these 'symbols' include what people on the autism spectrum are classified as having difficulty: hand-shaking, metaphors and idioms, body language, etc.

This leads me to ask those who AREN'T autistic/aspergers...how IS it that these social skills are normally learned and conformed to growing up? How is it that non-autistic people instinctively learn what other people mean when they say certain things? I mean, this is a LEARNING process, right? But then how is it that non-autistic people are able to comfortably conform to these expectations?

In short...what IS the difference in understanding? It's like...people with autism/aspergers can understand aspects of socialization (symbolic interactionism) in theory, but for some reason it doesn't come out in smoothly in practice. What IS it that makes non-autistic people behave more 'smoothly' in society?

((I think this is an implied rule, but please no flaming or prejudice; I would like an intellectual discussion here, not an editorial or rant about conspiracy theories and such. Thank you. ^^))

It might be that these "symbols" doesn't make sense for aspies and thus won't be added to the behavior pattern?

IF that's the case then, one might ask why it should make sense intuitively.

When people talk about "socal skills" or that people with autism lack them, I am mystified by what they actualy mean by "social skills".

NT:s seems to have less inclinations too lie, so it might affect the learning modus. In that the message being a part lie is part of the message so to say.

Wonder if this means that, for us, learning social skills is much like an adult learning a foreign language? I have to consciously think about what every word in English translates to in Spanish, there's lots of memorization involved, and I find it very difficult to go from the picture or concept directly to Spanish. My link between that and English is too strong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAfWfsop1e0
Yep. In a nutshell, Social Dyslexia.

(Though, ( according to board) Asperger's many times means more, e.g. self care problems and sensory processing, etc.)

A guess, body language -lexia causes processing of things and environment over people?

Then, is it lack of interest or lack of being able to process it?

To me, the arbitrary symbols have always felt 'optional'. Once I realised what they were.

Interesting thread. I hope to learn a lot from it.

I feel we still pick up on things but not the very important things (according to social ettiquite). It's like how we can remember a lot of details but not the overall picture.

I was actually in a thread talking about how people with ADHD have little control over both memory and actions. Maybe our brains are processing so much (sensory wise) that it can't summarise what is the most important part to remember? And perhaps the social part of our brain is even more under active than in ADHD.