To put it simply, I want friends but don't want to risk being made fun of or becoming the annoying person that everyone counts as a sort of pity friend. I don't know how to hold conversations. I'm a listener. And clearly bad at getting words out. 90% of my conversations as a kid had to do with literally role playing. It's all I've done since I was like 9. I have never had a need for "outside of school" friends. You know, the ones that you'd go out and about with or get invited to birthday parties or invite to birthday parties. I never really had that. It was always just my cousin and I. Now we're too different.
Hmm... yeah, I can see why making friends would be so difficult for you, then. :/
Still, though, my advice stands. It'll involve you stepping outside your comfort zone, sure, but I don't know how else you're supposed to make friends aside from
meeting people. I can definitely understand why you find it so intimidating, but, that doesn't change the fact that this is really the only way to make friends that I can think to offer.
If it helps, I would recommend not worrying so much about being a "pity friend". Even if you do wind up in a situation where you
think you're the pity friend, how do you really know that the other person sees you that way? How do you know that they don't genuinely care about you and enjoy spending time with you, while you're so worried that everything you say comes off as annoying, probably for no rational reason?
I wouldn't worry so much about being bad at getting words out, either. At the end of the day, making friends doesn't necessarily mean being talkative, it just means
starting a conversation and moving from there. It's still possible to be the person who doesn't do as much talking, especially once you've gotten to know the person more. Conversations don't always mean everyone talking for equal amounts of time, and that's ok -- they don't
need that.
Plus, lot's of people, even the ones who
do talk a lot, would agree that they might not be the best at putting things into words. You're not alone in that regard. In fact, I'd argue that doubting one's ability to communicate well verbally is a rather common human trait. XD Heck, it's even possible for outgoing and talkative people to have some serious social anxiety; being afraid of what others might think of you doesn't always translate to being quiet and shy, sometimes it can mean talking to people a lot and then constantly worrying about what you said.
I'm getting a bit off-topic here, I think, but, my point is, you're not alone in that fear. My only advice is to not let it stop you from braving that fear and talking to new people. Like Gwazi and I said, you'll have to step outside your comfort zone, but that's the only real way to make anything happen.
Plus, even if you
do feel like you're embarrassing yourself, consider this: we don't play a nearly as important role in other people's lives as we often think we do. When we do something potentially embarrassing, we often can't help but dwell on what other people could be thinking about us, but, really, there's a good chance that other people just
don't care, and I mean that in a positive way. Think of it like this -- I've seen plenty of friends worry constantly about some small aspect of their appearance -- like, I dunno, a near-invisible stain on a shirt -- and they get so caught up in what other people will think. But, have
you other looked at passersby and felt the need to mentally comb through every tiny detail of their appearance and make all sorts of assumptions about their character based off of those observations? Unless you're aiming to be the next Sherlock Holmes, probably not. If you consider the way that
you think about strangers and acquaintances on a regular basis, you might realize that the things that keep people so worried about potentially embarrassing themselves are the things that we generally might not even notice when we see it in other people. From your perspective, a social blunder might be a dreadful event to live through that'll keep you up at night thinking about how awful it was. But the person who witnessed that blunder? They might not even remember it tomorrow. While you're worrying about what the other person thinks, the other person isn't even thinking twice about you. There is no real reason to worry.
Hopefully that little nugget of wisdom will help quell some of your fears. I think that's really all I can offer to you, though -- brave those fears, in whatever way you can, and go for it. Whether in-person or online, you're going to need to get to know people to make friends. I seriously don't know what other fix there is.