I agree, but I’ll take it even farther and assert that Darcy does not have bad social skills. He was raised well and learned how to do all the social graces perfectly. He can turn it on whenever he wants.
We see more of this in the novel; even the 5-hour 1995 P&P had to cut some stuff out, and sadly a lot of it is Darcy conversation, showing him being polite, witty, and even flirty. Some of it is also his thoughts, when he notices Caroline and Lady Catherine being rude and thinks poorly of them, even well before he proposes to Elizabeth and undertakes some serious self examination. So, throughout the whole novel, he does know how to conduct himself in society and converse in a pleasing way with others.
This is how he made friends with Bingley. This is why his housekeeper loves him and thinks he’s kind. The key is that he cares about them, so he has no problem talking to them properly.
He doesn’t care about strangers through most of the book because he thinks he’s better than most of them, so he doesn’t put in the effort to be agreeable to them.
But we see that he can when he talks so nicely with the Gardiners at his house. They are strangers to him, but he doesn’t have any trouble speaking “with the greatest civility” to them. It’s because by this point he’s learned that he ought not to be a judgmental dick, not because he’s been practicing having conversations with strangers. In other words, it’s not a new skill he’s learned, it’s an existing skill he’s learned he ought to apply in new situations.
Apart from his truly horrible proposal, I suspect that many people think Darcy lacks social skills and/or has an actual social impairment largely because of this one line he says about himself:
“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess of conversing easily with those I have never seen before.”
Note that he says “talent,” not “skill,” and refers to doing it “easily.” I also don’t have this talent, but that doesn’t mean I have bad social skills. It just means I have to put in effort to do it rather than it coming naturally and easily to me. I know how to do it perfectly well and can choose to do it whenever I want. Same with Mr. Darcy.
Even Wickham admits this! I hate to agree with him on anything, but I think he is being truthful when he says this:
“Mr. Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not want abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth his while. Among those who are at all his equals in consequence, he is a very different man from what he is to the less prosperous. His pride never deserts him; but with the rich he is liberal-minded, just, sincere, rational, honourable, and perhaps agreeable—allowing something for fortune and figure.”
Darcy learns a lot of lessons in the book, but how to socialize with strangers isn’t one of them. Instead, he learns that strangers and people of lower status and/or intelligence than him still deserve his respect and effort as fellow humans.
What a great character arc that is! I agree with OP—let’s not take that away from Darcy nor our illustrious Jane Austen.
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