Reasons for poor social skills...?

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If someone is not autistic but has and always has had very poor social skills, what are the possible reasons?

Not sure but I wonder the same thing...I am not 100% sure I have AS but I feel there's always been something different about me...I mean I don't remember a time I ever fit in, even my first school experience that I remember involved the teacher singling me out.

I've been thinking similarly. There was only one time I had close friends. The rest of the time, I was always isolated. I am also not sure if I have AS though...

I have one close friend currently, first time I've really had a true friend who doesn't judge me and who really gets me. But yeah it seems I get along best with other people that cannot for whatever reason conform to this society.

Lucky you, my only close friend moved to a different country for a whole year just a couple days ago.

Last edited by Zexion on 15 Sep 2012, 7:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There's many conditions that can inhibit social functioning including ADHD, Social Anxiety Disorder, cancer and good ol' fashioned brain damage. There's also the case of nurture. Sadly, not everyone is born to good parents and not everyone is able to learn the skills they need to socialize. A good example would be orphans from poor orphanages in second and third world countries. They lay in the crib all day with little human interaction and they don't learn how to associate with human beings.

There was a documentary on youtube that touched on it. Later on the documentary they also discussed Aspergers. For the life of me I can't seem to find it.

Brain damage is one possibility in my case since I had a lack of oxygen at birth, but then I suppose I find the idea that it was simple brain damage all along a little bit depressing....but its also possible that could have just been a factor in some of the issues I have, hard to say.

I had abusive parents, and I still wonder sometimes if my problems aren't at least partially a result of it.

Lack of social learning experiences throughout childhood and teens.

One reason could be they have those AS traits and that is the only area where they have it. Another reason could be mental retardation. ret*d people have social development below the age level so their social skills will also not be right. I also read that ADHD causes poor social skills so that be another reason too. Also I am sure that child abuse can cause someone to have poor social skills and child neglect definitely due to little human contact.


Poor social skills can mean lot of things. People with social anxiety may say they have poor social skills or people who are shy.

Lack of social interaction in early childhood. I used to think my bad social skills were due to growing up without any extended family, but then I thought of how in kindergarten even though I was surrounded by kids I didn't interact with them.

I personally believe that everyone is on the autistic spectrum/has Aspergers traits, but only the 2% of people most affected, meet the diagnostic criteria.

1. People suck. People will always make judgements and they will always push away those who are different from them, largely due to people, a) being afraid of difference, b) being just total idiots and think they're better than those who are different, or c) being afraid of losing face in front of their friends by supporting/chatting with those who are percieved different.

2. Said person could have poor social skills due to lack of practice (this is one of the things that contributes to mine as well)

3. Said person may not want to be social, so they stay away from society, giving them possible poor social skills or the appearance of poor social skills.

That's just a few that I can think of, hope that helped.

I thought this thread was asking something like what scientific explaination is the reason why we lack social skills, like the brain being wired differently.

I was thrust in the social arena at a very young age and was constantly put into activities and classes. Apparently, the reason for this was because my mom was super worried and the pediatrician said I needed the exposure. However, my mother made it a point to ask what color eyes people I spoke to had in order to make sure I was keeping eye contact. Regardless, I still lack a lot of social skills. I was thought to have avoidant personality disorder at one point, which makes exposure to criticism hard and reason why I am distant and socially awkward. The other was social anxiety, which I was given lessons like making a point to talk to X amount of people a day even if it mean a compliment. There are a lot of different reasons.

For me at least I know part of my problem is I just don't want to socialize very much. Unless I have to I usually don't see the point.

I think another reason is that I often will find very vague connections between conversations and other things, like movies, songs, books, and other media and will often blurt out seemingly random bits of information, but really it's just that in my head the conversation and blurted out bit of information are connected. It's just that most people can't see the connection, and I can't always verbalize it correctly, so sometimes people think I'm too weird, which causes them to avoid socializing with me, and makes me feel anxious or stupid. Or sometimes I laugh at them for being so slow. Gotta find humor where you can I suppose.