My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

This sounds like a ton of work to learn and by the end it sounds more like a curse than a super power. To be so above people in terms of social intelligence must be horrible. It sounds like the Author views interactions on a completely different level.

I dont have any offensive social strategy so its hard for me to dictate making friends but passively I do quite well by just projecting an authentic version of myself.

Blessing and a curse combined. With great power, great responsibility, etc. etc.

Like his wife bluntly telling him many women had crushes on him and it must be coming from something he was doing.

He could have went different directions with that information. And chose the direction that was best for his marriage.

It really depends on what you want to do with your life.

If you want to do engineering, or play music, or be a professional chef, you don't need these skills.

If you want to be in sales, or a working actor, or manage a high-end restaurant, or be a professional interviewer, then these skills become pretty important.

I've always hated it when people juggle me and when I notice that I'm getting played. "Normal" people seem to absorb this strategy subconsciously throughout their lives and train themselves to do it too because they notice that it works better. To someone who notices this consciously it seems psychotic because well of course it's always easier to cheat, lie and fake your way to an advantage. You should be choosing not to live this way on purpose. I don't think that the person in the article did it from a bad heart which usually makes all the difference but tons and tons of people do it purely for self gain with no regard for the people getting exploited. Here it was his job to do this and arguably it was for the other person's benefit too to get better service so it was not bad. But we should still be able to name it what it is. This tier of strategy is polluting non-work social environments too. The last thing we need is more people who are getting better at faking being interested or caring.

I'm aware that if such people stop fake caring then they will stop caring altogether. Well good, stop gaming yourself to life advantages please that you shouldn't have. Of course it's harder to actually care about things compared to fake caring. It's harder to be an actually good person vs faking being good and it's probably far less rewarding for most to only be getting what they should be getting in life. Luckily most people are not that good at being fake because like you said, it still takes effort. But people who do it all their life no longer feel that effort and this is how you end up with lifelong fake people.

In general we will never get people to stop faking and lying their way to advantages in life so what decent people are left with is to develop an even harder armor that fake people can't get through with these strategies. It's sad but that's what life seems to be: You have to find people who aren't just here play and beat you like you're a videogame or for a darker analogy play you like you are an asset and they are a CIA agent.

Come on, can you really care about a stranger's stupid story?

Isn’t it enough that I care about not being lonely for the rest of my life, and in pursuit of that goal I decided to act like a good person and a good conversation partner?