Meeting people & making friends

Unfortunately I don't have any friends. I am a loner out of fear of being judged or rejected by people rather than actively choosing to be a loner.

Meeting people I find difficult as you can never know who is ok to trust, not judge you, I myself admittedly can be quite judgmental and will be less inclined to engage with people who come across as arrogant, aggressive, too loud and outgoing, etc.

But being a loner is of course lonely. I don't really know how to make friends or talk to people. I used to play Mmos (mainly FFXIV) where I enjoyed the social interaction with others. I suppose in that game you can chat to people about game related stuff I suppose.

Anyway more lately I have thought about trying social media to connect with people. But how do you even start when you have no friends to begin with? I have a Twitter account for instance but never post anything because I anticipate some trolls to shoot me down because I have no friends.

I think that's why I downloaded this 7 cups app as a way of trying to connect to people. A way of testing the waters as it were. And I suppose this is a kind of cop out because even if I cannot make friends on here o know I'm unlikely to be confronted by mean replies because it's a place where people support each other. I doubt I'd get that courtesy else where.

With COVID and all meeting people in person is virtually impossible now so I suppose society (at least where I live in Britain) has become much more isolated.