There's a skill to being honest in a productive way. Being honest in a way that communicates your thoughts and gets people engaged rather than defensive is really difficult but really valuable. But if you don't yet have that skill being completely honest will hinder you.
Maybe we are just thinking of different things when we talk about social skills? I think of things like being able to participate in small talk all day or participating in social events. I am very good at reading people and understand how they think and how they would react to different things I say, so in some way I got good social skills, but I'm pretty sure most people would say that I have bad social skills since I don't like social situations and therefore don't build connections.
