Advice: if you want to get good at social skills, practice with a receptive audience

I'm fully aware that bartenders and female wait staff are more receptive to you because you're tipping them. But whatever. Who cares... Right? They're more open to what you're talking about. They are a receptive audience and regardless of weather they're being receptive only because you're a customer or not, they allow you to feel and understand what it's like to have active engaging conversations with people for the most part. Another example is my Uber drivers. I know not all of them are necessarily into what I'm saying. But I'm a compelling speaker and can almost always get them around into the things I'm starting to talk about about. These are really good ways begin to learn what it can be like to start engaging conversations with folks.