People with high social skills. What's the biggest mistake that people often make in interactions with others?

for me, I would briefly say, it is "taking it too far" and "one up-ing". A more advanced occurence seems to not know how the conversation changes during the course of (for example) an evening.

  • taking it too far: Friends with poor social skills tend to go into too much detail when e.g. talking about their field-of-work-related stuff. A funny story that needs more time to explain the basic knowledge necessary to understand the actual funny part is often times not a good topic of conversation (AT THE BEGINNING of the evening)

  • one up-ing: when going out with my peers who work in the same field, and a funny story from work is used as a conversation sparker, it seems that some friends aren't very sensible to when to drop one topic and move on to the next or give another person of a group the chance to tell his/her story. I think in general, around 2 funny additions or comments to a story that is told in a larger group is appropiate.

lastly and importantly, the conversation level changes during the course of an evening when meeting new people. Often times people wioth bad social skills tend to be very uncomfortable at the early stages of joining new groups and later during an evening tend to figure out how the dynamics within the group are.

as a practical suggestion (be yourself and confident is not one imo) i'd say: stay passive in the beginning and work yourself into the conversations more as the evening or day progresses. once the "conversation starter" topics and talks are over, people and groups tend to "flow" more naturally and that is the best time for socially awkward people to start participating and establish your personality and appearence in the

drink a beer :*

/r/AskReddit Thread