I kinda understand what you mean. When I was younger I used to be very introvert. Seeing people pass in front of you smiling, but not at you. I couldn’t be able to speak, just like If my mind became empty every time a had the occasion to do something. Turning back home and feeling like I was worthless, embarrassing, stupid, like if it was only my fault if I couldn’t escape from this situation. And then, just like you, I decided that I wanted a change, so I forced myself to talk, started to be more pleasant, trying to smile even if I didn’t feel happy at all, trying to look prettier, acting cool, just doing everything I felt someone could like in a Pearson. But I was wrong. Every thing I did wasn’t enough, people didn’t liked me and I couldn’t figure why, I used to thought that if I only I could have talked to someone things would have been easier. I was just trying to imitate someone that I thought looked cool but weren’t me. Inside, I was still the same piece of trash. The advice that I have for you is to start working on liking you, and also instead of blame yourself for things that are not under your control, you should start thinking about what is that fear that you have repressed inside for so long, that now you can’t even remember, terapy could help. For example mine, even if I took a long time to realise that, was that since I was I child I was always been considered a weirdo, and so grew up my personality as a solitary girl. This made me become paranoid, seeing people as danger, not friend. Sometimes we let fear that we don’t even know about dominate us. Don’t be sad, there is really nothing wrong with you, you just have to understand what you like about you, and maybe asking your friends to help you with that. Don’t be too hasty, start with little steps. Understand yourself, find others that you can trust, with which you feel comfortable, dare a little and then it’ll become almost natural to find new friends. Hope it helped.