did social skills ever come naturally to you?

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The posts about ?built in friendships? bring back memories from my childhood. I was fortunate to grow up (beginning in kindergarten) in a neighborhood with lots of kids. I never understood why I did not have friends, outside the kids in my neighborhood. They all had other friends. But not me. Initially, this did not bother me much (as the neighborhood kids seemed ?good enough?). Then, in middle school, things started to fall apart. Some of the kids in the neighborhood moved away. While others simply no longer wanted to associate with me (effectively, I became a social pariah to them).

Dang...as I write this, it brings back some sad memories, for little Rocket.

Just my opinion, but I don't think that most of these childhood "friendships" are really a result of social skills. I think it's more of a matter of "social coincidence" if you will. So basically you just happened to hang around people you happened to be with and your younger self didn't really have much to object. In my childhood, I hung around people that were occasionally mean to me for being maladjusted, something I probably wound't do (as much) nowadays. Needless to say I grew apart from these people when their social awareness increased faster than mine did.