Someone define "social skills"

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I've been told in high school I need to work on them. Honestly I think mine are good for an aspie but to an NT they suck. To an aspie, they're great.

I know talking to people and socializing doesn't make me have good social skills or me helping out. Heck even a four year old can be talking to grown ups and helping other people out but that wouldn't make their social skills above their age level.

Even my husband thinks mine aren't good. It seems like no matter how much I learn, they still suck. I am thinking I will always have poor social skills no matter how much a learn. Just like someone can read all the information they want on things and learn facts about it but their IQ will always be the same. Knowing all that knowledge won't make their IQ be any higher. Maybe it's the same with social skills. I will always be socially ret*d. I have no idea what my social IQ is or what age level it's at.

It isn't very helpful for people to tell you that your social skills suck. Social skills can mean such a broad number of things. If people tell you that, you should try to pin them down to one or two improvement areas. You may need to learn to listen better or to not monolouge (hog the conversation)... In my case, my boss told me that I rushed into the "meat" of conversation without doing small talk so my thread is all about learning to do "small talk". In my sessions to learn this skill I am hitting on some other areas that need to be addressed for me to succeed in my 1 area of improvement.

You cannot fix things that are not specific... At least I cannot.

@kfisherx off-topic but your social skills stories are awesome. I was amazed at how hard you push yourself!

I'm usually loathe to criticize, but everyone around me does it.

It also seems like people value it if you can "knock someone down a peg".

Never criticize unless the gains with the audience in the case outweigh any loss you incur with the person you are criticizing(and then if the audience is persuasive enough that may rebound back so that the person you talk to will actually take the criticism seriously thanks to peer pressure and maybe then they will ultimately benefit from your criticism).

Only criticize if you are trying to win brownie points with onlookers and make sure your criticism will be perceived by them as deserved and appropriate. For example, say you are a boss, you have to criticize employees sometimes. You don't need to be overly harsh, but you still need to be able to tell them when they aren't doing a good job and it's not just for them, it's for anybody else who notices. One person might make a mistake, but you might want to make it clear to the rest of the office not to make the same mistake.

There's more people in a social situation than just the two talkers(and even supposedly larger situations can essentially be broken down into 2-person conversations just that sometimes each 2-person conversation is lasting a few seconds(or milliseconds), switching to another set of 2 people and then coming back soon after). You need to consider the audience and the effects you are having on your audience.

It's kind of weird that more than one person has objected to my giving up on social skills.

I've never had any, and I don't ever plan to get any, because I consider most social skills to be phony and uncomfortable to the point of physical pain.

But I haven't given up on actual useful communication skills, which is what I think autistics should be focusing on instead of learning to be phony. Being verbose and precise to get your points across, asking clarifying questions if you don't understand something, asking people what they think you think to make sure that they don't misinterpret you, making sure that you don't misinterpret others --- taking an autistic approach to communicate more clearly with NTs instead of trying to emulate the NT approach that makes no sense to you. And also not emulating the NT need for socialization if you don't feel that need yourself.

Are you joking? I mean, is this a serious post?