There is a certain thing that I realized and got somewhat good at only recently: what we call a social "skill" is a bidirectional skill of performance and appre

There is a certain thing that I realized and got somewhat good at only recently: what we call a social "skill" is a bidirectional skill of performance and appreciation. It has to be, to be communicative. Therefore, being "good" at socializing is extremely contextual. People speak of having a different personality when they speak a foreign language. This is a predictable outcome, since without total fluency, they will neither speak nor listen with identical competence. And this also means that a group like a high school class can have a nominal social order, but it's premised on popular appreciation, which molds a certain "type" into the cool kids - the ones who actively work on appealing to a broad "teen audience" in their communication. After getting a little bit of an edge, it self-reenforces and becomes what that class knows to appreciate, at which point the cool kid's performance skills don't actually have to progress much further and they can just coast along the wave through graduation. It's more often people who can't be appreciated in what they're doing yet(immaturity from their classmates, lack of direction from parents and teachers, unusual thought patterns etc.) who get the "outcast" label. For the most part, they are not "bad" at socialising, they're just tuned differently. And so if you go to a gathering assuming "actually, maybe everyone is pretty bad at communicating on average" and then look for ways to fill in gaps according to their filters and preferences, the doors can open really fast. It just takes a lot of knowing oneself to succeed, since your ability to adapt style can only go so far - you're better off giving an amazing performance in the communication styles you're good at than a mediocre one in a popular, more competitive style.