I would second not looking at fiction. So much of the cultural morés around relationships come from what we see in media and so much of it is just wrong and designed to create excitement through dramatisation and negative archetypes. We subconsciously imitate these archetypes and then we're surprised that conflict occurs in real life too. Find people in real life who you respect deeply and try and see what they're doing instead.

Also, exposure therapy, which is essentially what you recommended by saying go to Starbucks, Toastmaster etc, doesn't really work at a fundamental level either. I've done this deeply but didn't really get anywhere for many years. The real problem that creates lack of emotional understanding is our upbringing and how our parents raised us. One can force themselves into social situations for decades and still be anxious or lack empathy and this is simply because how we were raised in the first several years of our lives reverberates into the rest of our life unless awareness is brought into these dynamics.