With that said, I still do see some people (albeit rarely) still find a way to bridge the gap using what seems like infinite patience and grace on their part (which I would say are part of social intelligence).
But even then, there are people who will always allow their implicit biases come to the surface, no matter how graceful you are.
It is also true that some people are really adept at social skills maybe due to experience or maybe due to innate, genetic factors. Some people are really fun and fascinating to talk to. Even nerdy, unattractive people! Like, sometimes I get to know people whose only passion in life is mathematics and they're generally very unattractive but they are extremely fun to talk to. I just wanna be around then and listen to their jokes. But some people are not like that, and this makes social interactions inherently harder for them.
I wasn't thinking of cultural biases (I'm mostly thinking of Bay Area cultural context since this is the one I know but I'm assuming it's pretty much the same in most Western cultures) but I guess you can say something about that too. My main point is: talkign to women is extremely easy for some people, and the hardest thing in the world for other. When you simply can't talk to anyone comfortably in non-work context, it's almost impossible to make friends with them. I honestly do not know how to properly make women friends and I'd much rather not make women friends than make them and myself uncomfortable which for me disproves the whole article.
:(
With that said, I do think there are some situations where physical attractiveness is much less of a barrier. I've seen some friendships grow from interactions on Discord for Pokemon Go, for instance. Those people may interact in person pretty rarely, but seem to have pretty deep discussions online. Same could be said for other online communities, of course.
This depends on a lot more than your social abilities such your the way you look and your social status, none of which can be changed easily.