Social skills include
responding politely
to invitations

As people develop various skills that are useful in their lives, they become better able to attain their goals. As they develop their verbal skills, they find themselves able to learn more from their reading and to communicate better through their writing and oral presentations.

As they develop their musical abilities, they find themselves invited to social gatherings where they are asked to play their instruments. As they develop their athletic skills, they find themselves feeling better because they are in good physical condition.

When individuals develop better social skills, they discover that more people are willing to interact with them and to help them on various projects at work and in their communities.

Social skills allow individuals to benefit from the contributions others can make. Problems arise when people forget or neglect social skills and, as a result, irritate and possibly alienate others.

My request for examples of problematic social skills brought a variety of suggestions from readers. One wrote, "Please start with the lack of response to RSVP requests on invitations. I send out invitations for a business luncheon that my company is sponsoring. We ask invitees to tell us whether or not they will be coming. This seems like a pretty reasonable request since we have to tell the caterers how many lunches to prepare. But it ends up being guesswork. Sometimes plenty of people just show up and I don't eat lunch since I give mine to someone else."

This is a common problem in Hawaii. Most of my students are in their 20âs and so marriage is possible in their not-so-distant futures. I tell them, "Ladies and gentlemen, there will be a time in a few years when you will be very frustrated. In fact, if there are guns around you might use them inappropriately. You will be planning your wedding and will send out invitations and, of course, you will want people to tell whether they are coming or not. But you won't hear from a lot of people. Consequently, in addition to the time demands of all your other wedding plan activities, you or a relative will have to get on the phone and ask if invitees are coming."

I believe that the lack of emphasis on RSVP social skills comes from Hawaii's past. In the memories of many people, Hawaii had a much smaller population than today. In addition, the number of places where people might see each other was also small: the shopping center, the museum, or one of a few big movie theaters. Now, there are many shopping centers, art galleries and museums, and small movie theaters that have replaced yesterday's Waikiki and downtown theaters. In the past, people could run into each other and say, "Oh yes, I'll come to the business lunch." Now, people are in so many different places that they are far less likely to see each other.

Problems arise because people have not yet developed the habit of sending a note or placing a telephone call to substitute for the lack of a face-to-face meeting. Perhaps today's users of sophisticated technology will contribute to social skills improvement. With today's cell phones, sending short RSVP text messages is simple and consumes very little time.