Everything you mention reminds me of my older boy. He is 2e....gifted and Aspergers.
The things I found helpful when he was younger
-intensive exercise (swim team and running) and learning progressive relaxation
Both of those helped with anxiety, and the team helped with social skills
-social stories
And exposure to common age appropriate pop culture items to talk about...in his case, books, movies (marvel movies plus others), some video games (but that was controlled so it didn’t get out of hand)...he had a few he was partial to....the legend of Zelda games and Mario games and a few more.
He would have been offended to go to a social skills class so I never could manage that. So time and experience just had to do its thing. Small talk when meeting new people is still really, really, really hard, but he puts all his effort into it.
