Men who complain about “skill issue” aren’t actually developing skill.

Prudent_Heat23 · 2026-05-21T21:22:38+00:00

Improving social skills is possible but nowhere near as straightforward as improving at basketball or chess.

There are books on social skills, but the advice therein is far more abstract than advice on how to play a game. If you conceive of social skills as a game where the object is to have a good time, be well-liked and be attractive to women, then you can see that’d be an incredibly complex game with countless variables compared to any actual game.

Basketball and chess have ways to practice on your own and rack up a ton of repetition. Socializing does not. You need other people to practice. And the ultimate catch-22 is, the worse you are, the fewer opportunities you’ll get to practice with others.

Finally, it’s very hard to get honest feedback as to how you’re failing socially. You might sense that you’re not well-liked and don’t get invited out much, but people are generally too polite to describe why. Whereas with basketball, let’s say, failure at least exposes exactly where you need to improve. Maybe your shot is consistently coming up short, maybe you get bullied in the paint… you always get something beyond generic sense of failure unlike with socializing.

This isn’t to say no one should try improving socially, just don’t expect the quick elevator ride up like boosting your chess elo.

thrown-away-soul · 2026-05-21T21:15:23+00:00

The problem is not all of the traits women find attractive can be worked toward or improved on. I am 5'11. There is no skill I can learn or anything I can practice to grow an inch taller and become 6 foot. I am also neurodivergent so I do not have this super power neurotypicals seem to have of knowing exactly what to say in every situation and never running out of things to say to keep conversations going for extended periods of time. I also have higher inhibitions than most even after drinking alcohol. I'm chubby but with some muscle underneath and with wide shoulders. I'm working on that by doing weights and cardio, and so far I'm down 11kg and also feel stronger. If it was possible to earn or acquire every trait women found attractive then I would agree with you but that simply isn't the case and so luck does play a factor which sucks for people like me with bad luck.

leosandlattes · 2026-05-21T20:50:00+00:00

Re: red pill, one of the biggest pieces of advice on TRP was that at some point, theory stops helping you. The TRP Endorsed Contributors were constantly telling men to stop reading the subreddit and to go out and actually do.

Here is the issue with a lot of men for whom developing social skills is a problem — ideally you are socialized since childhood into your teenage years to understand what is acceptable and unacceptable. You internalize, based on the people around you, what the “rules” are, and that’s true of romantic interaction too.

Except now, the men who did not have the greatest socialization when young, are struggling in their adult life, and the stakes are higher now. People have greater expectations based on what is normal for an adult, and are also less likely to give as much grace when mistakes are made. It’s difficult to just go out and practice, and in the case of social skills, there isn’t really a script to follow. Whereas in chess and basketball, there are usually step by step guides.

I think there are ways to improve social skills safely, but I also don’t think they are all feasible. Like, I am convinced that retail, sales, and customer service jobs strengthen people’s social skills and are great ways to improve in “controlled” social environments. But not everyone can afford to quit their current job or pivot their career into that. I mean that’s just not realistic, and that advice is better suited toward young people, like 18-25 yos.

What do you want late 20s and even early 30s men to do about improvement?

SmertriosPPD · 2026-05-22T00:10:34+00:00

"skill issue" in dating is like if you were to play chess with only pawns against a woman who has only queens and you're told that it's your fault for not winning.

Women don't need good makeup or fashion to get boyfriends, don't need social skills, and don't need to fix their mental issues. They're never told it's a skill issue whatsoever when the same woman is being pumped and dumped for the 10th time, they're told men suck.

So yes, "skill issue" is inflammatory because it amounts to say that men are the only one who should do any sort of compromise to appeal to women. While women just need to exist.

Social skills are overrated anyway. Men don't need those. Men need to be men and to be around women so some start to like them. Simple as that. No skill required.

Skills are even counter productive most of the time. If you flip a dice and attempt to predict if you're getting a 6 or not, actually trying to predict it will have poorer results than always predicting that it'll not land on 6. It works exactly the same for socializing, you can try and predict who she is and what she wants to hear, but most of the time you'll predict wrong and you'll not be good at pretending to be someone else. Safer bet to just be yourself no matter what.

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Ohnoes_in_distress · 2026-05-22T13:14:48+00:00

While some improvement in social skills should pretty much always be possible, there are two issues.

First, your starting level may vary and is largely outside of your control. Perhaps your parents were socially isolated people and never cared for your social development, thus you met no kids your age beside in school and grew up socially stunted.

Even after spending x amount of time, effort, trial and error, constantly stepping out of your comfort zones etc and achieving some progress, you are still socially incompetent (say, 4/10) just because you started at such low level (say, 2/10). Even though you do better now, it may still not be enough to form a romantic/sexual relationship, or land your dream job, for example.

Second, even if you do improve your social skills, you can't really change how the neurotransmitters work in your brain. Established introverts will never have their neurotransmitter interceptors light like a christmas tree upon a social situation, like extroverts have. It means that the improvement 'weights' less, because for many people social situations are not fun.

S0mnariumx · 2026-05-22T17:53:17+00:00

Yeah skill issues are just autism

mobjack · 2026-05-21T20:23:31+00:00

Gaining experience going on real dates can improve your dating skills.

You can analyze what things worked and did not work, then adjust and try new strategies.

Title	Men who complain about “skill issue” aren’t actually developing skill.
Author	EugeneCezanne
Upvotes	5
Comments	68
Date	May 21, 2026 7:56 PM UTC (2 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1tjvyzn/men_who_complain_about_skill_issue_arent_actually/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/men-who-complain-about-skill-issue-arent-actually.1580900 https://theredarchive.com/post/1580900

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