Even with Good Social Skills, Would Someone Want to be Your Friend?
by Laurie Wilhelm
Having good social skills will definitely help you make friends. Learning and practicing these skills, also known as interpersonal skills, are essential during the initial stages of meeting people and when building long-term friendships. Strong social skills will make you feel more comfortable in social situations by providing you with techniques such as how to make a good first impression, how to keep a conversation going, or how to provide good feedback. With these skills, you’re more likely to connect with new people, turn acquaintances into friends, and have positive interactions with colleagues and peers at work.
However, having good friendships requires more than having good social skills. This is where your personality, interests and values come into play. Having a bunch of social skills at your disposal won’t help you take your interpersonal relationships to the next level if you’re…well…a generally unlikable person.
Sounds a bit harsh, I guess, but I think it’s true.
Once people get to know you and if you turn out to be someone who is selfish, thoughtless, inconsiderate, manipulative, judgmental, needy, a gossiper, complainer or is negative about almost everyone and everything, then there’s a good chance that not many people will want to be your friend.
Negative personality characteristics vary in intensity so it’s not like you have to be deep into everything in the above list to put off people. You just need a few to find yourself alone. If this is the case, all the social skills in the world won’t be of much assistance in maintaining long-term, mutually fulfilling relationships.
Social skills are a great way to start friendships and to maintain relationships as long as you have good personal characteristics to back them up. Good friendships are built on good social skills as well as quality traits including respect, integrity, honesty, trust, reliability and fairness.
So, if you believe that you’ve got good social skills but you still have poor relationships, take a closer look at who you are – or ask someone you trust, like a family member – and see if you can find some negative attributes that could be turning off others. Maybe you’ll find that if you work on those areas then the number of friends and the quality of friendships you have will increase.
