>Once I figured out that this was a skill and not just something people that are not me are born with

I agree that it is a skill, but like any skill it helps immensely to start learning it as a child. It took me until my 30s to realize that my parents were essentially... antisocial. And that most of the social skill lessons I took from them, if any, were probably wrong and unproductive. I spent a lot of time (and money) trying to learn to overcome that, but never made any progress.