I'm afraid low self-awareness and social intelligence are often largely genetic.
I know I've been hammering that looks are almost everything, but if they're not accompanied by some social intelligence, you get cases like
@Xander94 and Baldhurts (RIP).
I had a discussion with my girlfriend about this, she says that guys who just have no social intuition are very common and that it's a big problem for girls... Especially when they're hot
.
They're like "come on, I thought I had hit the jackpot!" and then the guy has the IQ of an oyster, he interrupts her all the time, has no sense of timing, jumps on her for a kiss (which she'll often accept, let's not kid ourselves here), starts texting her a hundred times a day after the date, etc.
Unless the girl is as dumb and socially oblivious as they are, educated girls will avoid guys like these for a long-term relationship. Of course you have exceptions and some girls will just be like "but he hot!" and make them their official boyfriend. If they do so, they'll undoubtedly be mocked by their friends and family, and the jealousy for the guy's looks won't help.
All this to say that looks often won't cut it, social intuition and intelligence shouldn't be overlooked (damn I'm actually saying this).
As
@David_MPN said before, everything matters to a degree.
I'm not sure about this, I know ugly people who have stellar social skills, but unfortunately for them, even if they always say everything in the right tone, at the right moment, make people almost piss themselves laughing, it won't help for certain social activities.
They still won't be invited to go to the club (and if they are it's to make fun of them), girls will still reject them, and any time they're not "perfect" socially, the backlash is f*****g brutal.
Sometimes one of these guys is going to try to be edgy or to get mad at something, and it never ends well. They can't do that. Like when a short guy tries to stand up for himself: "Haha Napoleon complex! Manlet rage!"
My point was that these guys still managed to develop excellent social skills despite being ugly.
And this doesn't explain why there are many good-looking guys who are socially autistic.
It all depends where we stand on the personality spectrum.
It's obvious that traits like extraversion/introversion are mostly genetic.
Kids are rarely different from both their parents when it comes to their core personality.
Of course experience is valuable, but will never turn an introvert into an extrovert for example. All introverts have tried.
I think what ugly guys with good social skills can do is more competently seek out that smaller fraction of women who will be into them, and be more self-aware of what their "league" is. If an ugly man is going after 5'10 athletic blondes with great jokes then he's not an ugly guy with good social skills, he's an ugly guy with bad social skills as he lacks self-awareness. Once you see a guy crashing and burning it's a very good indicator that his social skills are bad in my opinion.
I have behaved like an idiot with women in the past. Nevertheless, I am amazed at the stories I get from women. There are men who behave worse in their 30s than I did as an 18 year-old, for example they talk about marriage after the second or third date. Men who send dozens to hundreds of texts early on begging for more attention, what is the f*****g point? I kind of get it, I've been obsessed too, but even when I knew less than now, when I was effectively socially retarded, and when I didn't have access to forums like this one, I did not send a zillion uninterrupted texts. Perhaps I wasn't that retarded and I'm simply unaware of the bottomless well of dimness of the general male population.
Men apparently open on okcupid and plentyoffish with talk of sex, it's their first post. Women, even average women, apparently get several "hey wanna bone?!" messages per day, dick picks, etc. I can't see that being a good idea, but it's the norm. Women also get hateful invective if they don't reply to a message, or if they reply to a message by saying no. That may be why those two sites have been depopulated. Tinder, Bumble, and I think "coffee meets bagel" have women allow a man to message them.
I think good social skills likely help with women, I'm not sure to what extent. What is true though is that it will help one lead a better life. Self-awareness, receptiveness, not being a contrarian, good listening skills, empathy, and as you bring up good timing, et cetera are valuable to have even if women are sexually indifferent to them. You will build better bonds with more people, more meaningful connections.
A good analogy might be money. I don't see women being turned on if a guy makes $80,000/year rather than $40,000/year. But that difference is actually very meaningful, it means you can have an annual vacation together, that you can eat healthier meals, et cetera.
With respect to this forum, I think a lot of guys understate the importance of social skills as a cope. If they recognize that it's important, then they have to put more effort into yet another dimension, one which may be difficult to make progress on. They have to recognize that some of their failures might be their own fault. It is easy to blame looks, in many cases looks really are to blame, but on this forum we're aware of at least two good looking men who have substantially less relationship experience than they should, and are incorrectly blaming this on their looks.
