I’m a little bit on the spectrum, but what’s helped a lot for me was to go on drinking sessions with people from widely different backgrounds (teacher, lawyer,

I’m a little bit on the spectrum, but what’s helped a lot for me was to go on drinking sessions with people from widely different backgrounds (teacher, lawyer, businessman, trainers, other types of engineer, social workers). I was lucky in that these were instigated by my more outgoing brother, but I picked up a lot of the patterns which smooth these interactions, to the extent I can have decent conversations. Helps to be able to code switch as well. You’re not necessarily going to have a deeply intellectual discussion every time, and that’s fine.