Learn to listen to people. Conversations have a natural pause inserted between concepts that is an opportunity for the other person to respond. Do not talk over anyone, instead wait for that pause.

Does anyone else have difficulty with this?

In group conversations, I'm frequently unable to talk at all because that pause seems to be too short for me to notice. To me, it seems like person B magically knows when person A is about to stop talking and takes up the conversation the second A stops, no pause in between. I've had to learn to be more aggressive and less afraid to interrupt people, otherwise it might take half an hour before I get anything said.

It's particularly annoying when I come up with a comment to something that's being said, but by the time I'm able to say anything the conversation has shifted to something else entirely. This happening once or twice wouldn't be an issue, but half a dozen times during the same conversation starts to get frustrating.

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I think the most important advice in learning how to function socially is: study people. Watch them, analyze them, try to figure out why they do things. Examine both positive examples - people who function well in social settings - and negative examples.

Most people are fascinated by other people, and so will learn about them without prompting. I think the problem with socially awkward folk is that they find humans and social situations uninteresting and thus not worthy of study.

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Regarding the "if people don't laugh at your joke" thing, but applying more generally: I am frequently genuinely uncertain that I have been heard, where by "heard" I don't mean the metaphorical "understood and respected and acknowledged", just the part where I make sounds and these are registered in others' ears. Partly this is my own audio issues throwing off my calibration, partly it's how often people ask me to repeat things.

So when I get zero feedback of any kind for an utterance, my impulse is to repeat it, perhaps in different words, until someone reacts, but by then the reaction often seems to be annoyed. So this is obviously suboptimal, but I need to be able to distinguish between "I am inaudible/incomprehensible" and "my utterance has been deemed valueless". (Ideally I'd be able to tell why my utterances have been deemed valueless but that's a secondary issue.)

Do not approach within arm's reach (fingertips ourstretched) without them facing you. This is the approximate 'personal space' boundary. As soon as they back up even slightly, stop; you've gotten too close to them. If you find someone constantly edging away from you, adjust that distance upwards.

Note the exact distance varies greatly with culture. This is true even when comparing only Western nations to each other.

Always wait for someone else to laugh at your joke before you join in.

This is generally good advice, but can backfire if you show no signs that you are conscious of making a joke. Making people laugh while remaining deadpan yourself is a high-level humour skill. Listeners who are not sure whether or not to laugh will look for cues from other listeners and from you, and if you're not laughing they may just go along with that.

Often it's better to make it obvious that you've amused yourself with your own joke, with a smile or small chuckle, but not react to whether others laugh or not. That displays confidence, and gives others the social room to laugh if they want.

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If you have not showered or bathed with soap in the last 24 hours and used deodorant, people will notice.

Soap is overrated. Deodorant is not.

I've taken the liberty of formatting this as a list. I hope you don't mind.

I have great difficulty maintaining eye contact, which unfortunately conveys false impressions of either shiftiness or submissiveness. I found it extremely useful when someone pointed out to me that a)even for people like me, it is not particularly difficult to keep one's eyes on another person's forehead, and b)at the typical conversational distance (at least in anglophone countries), it is not possible to reliably distinguish when someone is looking at your forehead from when they are looking you in the eyes.

Corollary: Because looking at the forehead is... (read more)

In general: learn body language! Most of what you are communicating is being communicated by your body. Take some responsibility for what you are telling others with your body, and how you are making them feel.

Example: When a guy walks up to a girl and says, "Hey, I think you're cute," she's either going to think he's creepy or she's going to blush and smile. The difference will be made by the guy's body language. Either he has communicated that he is awkward and uneasy around women and not fun to be around, or he has communicated that he is conf... (read more)

I once had a job that required a lot of walking in hot weather, and everyone, coworkers and customers smelled bad. For some reason, an anonymous coworker complained to the boss about my smell in particular (I was already showering daily, wearing fresh clothes, and shaving body hair to reduce smell). So I bought some pocket-sized Axe deodorant spray and used it frequently. After that, everyone noticed the way I smelled. It was a little like the commercials, but much less extreme.

And that's the story of how I started wearing deodorant. You should too if you don't, and don't worry about people making fun of the smell or certain brands. Market research reflects people's preferences better than social memes.

From the linked article:

5. When given a compliment, "Oh, you're so well-read!", we look blankly in the eyes of the complimenter, and respond "Yes, I know."

That one's just fun sometimes. Maybe not quite blank. Let a hint through that the blankness is part of the jest. Do make sure there is some sort of signal that you don't take yourself seriously. Which roughly translates to conveying that you don't claim higher social rank by virtue of being well read.

I just use what I call the Ultimate Golden Rule: avoid social interaction.