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how do people usually make friends or start a conversation with strangers? i've spent the entirety of the past 2 years or so without talking to anyone, be it online or off, and i think it's starting to bite me in the ass. most of the "human" interactions i'm having is through anonymous imageboards, but i want to move onto things like IRC servers, which seem to have much more stuff happening. how do extroverts do it? how do you just say something without the fear of being punished or something?

A good habit to start is just small talk, even like saying "nice job" or something. I'm not an introvert, but itll eventually happen.

I suffer from similar predicaments, I cant tell you how to make friends but I can share some thoughts Point 1: Your problem may be fear of rejection. You're probably afraid to talk to people at work, school, or in public because you're afraid they will not like you and reject you. Primarily this is human nature which commonly manifests as 'shyness'. But when an individual is vulnerable it is excaberated into true fear in people that dealt with some sort of Trauma or humiliation in their life, be it broken parenthood, early life bullying etc. This is what you yourself are responsible for dealing with internally and only you can look within. Point 2: An unrelated problem is our consumerist society which has atomized the individual and uprooted our communities and closeknit ties. We are now expected to make friends and associate in the Systems institutions, be it corporate jobs or planned common core education where random peoples kids are forced into the same room 8hrs per day and expected to become friends. People with mild introversion / social anxiety that would've been able to get by just fine in society as a slightly "quiet and reserved type" 20+ years ago are now facing complete alienation because they just cant relate to the common, dumbed down but fast paced consumerist culture. They arent able to fit in by watching football, enjoying pop culture, and meeting people at school and work. The problem is in my opinion societal where we have no authentic shared interest groups and all suffer from individualist atomization, Game theory economics by design. As a lot of people cannot cope with this, you shouldnt feel like you are "bad" or "weird". Dont blame yourself. Many of these people die from suicide, become homeless and other things. For survival, humans need to belong to something, otherwise we are extremely vulnerable to annihilation by other stronger groups. Which is why these feelings of total "societal" alienation are so strong and devastating . In evolutionary Psych(sorry to use the Pop culture term), the society is represents the "enemy" that is the conqueror, and we sociophobes, misanthrobe alienated individuals and social outliers, are the inevitable victims if we do not do as the "society" expects.

>how do extroverts do it? how do you just say something without the fear of being punished or something? For the dumb, it's ignorance. For the smart, it's understanding. You start talking to a stranger, and you accidentally offend them, your nightmare... so what? They can't really punish you, they don't know you let alone care about you enough to persue you. Once you're familiar enough with what a society considers appropriate, you don't have to worry (or at least you know what is worth worrying about). If you're not /poI/-brained or some other hateful idiot with empathy issues, this isn't very hard to pick up. Confidence comes with mindset and practice.