I don't see it that way. They're not 'social engineering', they just have a greater understanding as to where interactions will go and the confidence to carry out said interactions. The only alternative for them is being willfully blind to social interaction which isn't a real option in my view.

As long as your external actions and your underlying goals are in harmony there is no dishonesty.

Look at it like this:

I have a friend.

Friends try to do good things for each other.

My friend seems different today than they are usually.

They are sad.

My friend likes getting flowers.

I want them to be happier.

I will say something nice and buy them a flower.

It cheered them up a bit.

I will ask how they are, because I notice that other people do that for their friends and it helps.

On the one hand you could say, hey that's calculated manipulation. Which it kind of is and that sounds negative and dishonest.

But there is nothing dishonest about it. It's something many people might do without even thinking about which is why it seems odd to spell out as a rational process. But if you don't get it intuitively, you may have to resort to a rational process to figure out how to cheer your friend up.

I don’t know if that’s quite what they meant. I understood it as an “intuitiveness.”

I used to work with young adults on the autism spectrum at a ymca camp and the higher functioning folks lacked the ability to intuitively interact with others- the same way I might not intuitively understand engineering problems. I get frustrated by them and don’t know what to do. Imagine if that is how you felt interacting with people on a very basic basis.