I agree with the advice above, and I have a caveat as well. My entire life I have also struggled with anxiety in social settings due to childhood bullying and a rough household. I have watched my own flesh and blood, my own family, steal money from my savings account, and I have been left stranded in a parking lot with a broken down vehicle miles away from my house by someone who was my girlfriend at the time. I get trust issues as well.
Social interactions can be scary, and trusting people enough to actually like them can be even scarier. Overall however, everything I just listed above are just excuses. That's it. I'm definitely not a perfect person or a role model, as I still sometimes throw pity parties for myself or screw up big, but I can acknowledge when I'm just making excuses for my actions.
Either you control your fears or your fears control you. It's that simple. When your desire to make friends outweighs your fear of rejection, you'll make friends.
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To paraphrase a story I heard on the radio -
There once was a young man who wanted to be successful, so he asked this well known millionaire in the community what his secret for success was. The older millionaire told the young man that if he really wanted to learn his secret to success to meet him at the beach tomorrow at 4 AM.
So the young man shows up the next day at 4 AM like the older gentleman asked in his beach shorts, and asked him what was next. The millionaire told him to walk into the water. Walking about ankle deep, the young man begins to question the point of going to a beach to learn about success, as he wanted to become a millionaire like the older man, not a lifeguard. Hesitant, the younger man looks back and the millionaire tells him to walk further still. The young man walks till he's waist deep, and looks back to see the millionaire motioning him to continue walking in the water. The young man gets to where the water is at his shoulders and is about to turn back until he sees the older man behind him, and sensing his doubts, the millionaire tells him "Do you want to be successful or not? Walk further."
Finally, the young man loses his footing and the millionaire begins to hold his head underneath the water to drown him. After a few long moments of struggling, the older man lets him back up and asks him what he was thinking about when he was drowning. The young man told him "Well, all I could think about was how badly I wanted to live." The older man told him to be more specific, what did he really want to do at that particular moment when his lungs were filling with water.
The young man told him "Well, I guess all I wanted to do was breathe." At this point, the millionaire smiled.
"Exactly. When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, you'll be successful."
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Rather long story, I know, but I feel it applies to many things in life. Especially if your current idea of 'success' is to make some new friends. I would offer to be your first online friend, but truthfully I'd be a rather terrible one as I'm about to be without internet for several months again in a few days.
