Is being fake a social skill?

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People accept the portions of reality that suit their purposes and reject the rest.

Because there are "faking" AS between them

I think you can see the broader human pattern in toddlers. Picture a toddler. He toddles away from mom to see what's in the next room, what's in the box, what was that noise, what happens if I shake this object. He's very curious and wants to know everything about the world. But at the same time he's very curious, he wants his personal world to stay completely stable. When he returns from seeing what was around that corner, he wants to see that mom is still right where he left her and has not disappeared or been replaced with a monster.

I think that mix of wanting to know everything while at the same time wanting our world to stay stable and not be rocked too much persists to adulthood. So as a species we take in new pieces of paradigm-shifting information very slowly, over the course of decades or centuries, so that as a species we explore reality but at the same time do it in baby steps so our world doesn't get rocked too much.

On a personal level we want to know all about ourselves and how we tick and everything but ok, not really everything. We want to know a little about how others' perceive us but not the literal, unvarnished truth 24/7/365. It's too destabilizing. So the reality about ourselves is explored in small, manageable steps and luckily for our psyches (according to neurologists and psychologists) it isn't possible for us to have full understanding. Our egos weave a story that ties all the sensory input together into something manageable and too much reality would unravel that and leave us shattered.

I don't call it being "fake". I call it "putting on a front". Yes it is a normal and skilled social trait, that many NTs do as well as Aspies. I'm very good at it.

Thank you people for the wonderful answers to my question about space exploration!

Nightsun, next time you make me spit my coffee onto the computer screen, you come to Tel Aviv to wipe it.

Janissy, would these 2 statements be true?

1. People can cope with difficult truth if getting into it at a Psychologically manageable pace.

2. Along their lives, people encounter several moments of inner conflict between truth and what they want to believe.

I agree with both those statements.

The second one can be especially painful. Hopefully in your own life it isn't been as ghastly as it has for some but you see this played out in the news pretty frequently. Somebody will be arrested for some horrific crime and those who love him (or her) go either one way or the other. They can either accept this horrible new fact into their worldview and grieve for their own lost innocence before they found out this truth, or they can continue to deny that it is a truth. You see this played out depressingly often.

Janissy,

This brings us to the topic of denial, which I've been trying to understand for a long time, and I've been meaning to ask you. It's the hardest thing for me to understand about people. I don't seem to be able to engage in it like others. If I started a thread on "Denial", would you be willing to contribute your insights about a couple questions there?

Sure. No doubt I'm in denial about several things in my own life, but if I knew what they were...I wouldn't be in denial. It's a Catch-22.

I understand that being fake is what keeps society running all civil and stuff. What I dont like is how I cant tell if someone is being fake or not. I mean we can make certain assumptions but being aspie its hard to tell.
Yes being fake is a form of social skill. Its one of the things: if you fake your personality in the ways that other people like: you can go far in the social realms. Learning standard social skills is good but faking the favorable body language is great.

To me, being "fake" means pretending to be one thing and actually being another. For example, acting happy when you're depressed. Or something like that. I work with a lot of people, being in retail, and I have to talk to people whether I want to or not. I feel that I have to be friendly with everyone 24/7 but that's hard to do even if you're an NT. So being fake can be a good thing IMO, for someone with Asperger's (like me) or autism. I think that's why I wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult because as a teenager I hid my symptoms so people wouldn't think I was different. It wasn't picked up on until later because in college I became really depressed and sought help. I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder at first and two shrinks later, one of them diagnosed me with Aspergers. So in a way I feel like I can be a little fake sometimes.