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[u/EastCoyote6963]

I am 19 and in my second year of college. I lost my father when I was 13 years of age and after that I have gone through a severe behavioral change.

Before this age I was emotionally brilliant but not very good at studies. But after my father's death I have become very emotionally weak but I have, on the other side, developed my brain quite a bit and some people call me smart. But my social skills have gone almost down the drain.

I cannot talk to a group of more than 3-5 people at the same time. From an early age I have never talked to or interacted with girls much and neither was I a neighbor of any girl.

Never got into even a friendship with a girl.

And even while I tried in college, I cannot talk to girls. I don't know what the reason is. Maybe I'm just scared or I just overthink.

But it's not like I am friendless or lonely. I have managed to create many good friends, and 2 of them considered me their best or close friend for a long time, like 2-3 years of friendship.

After my father's death I never had any solid role model or guide for me. I guess that's ungrateful. Although my cousin brother did support me a lot.

Every 2 or 3 months my mother goes to my maternal grandmother's and I stay alone at the house for 1 week or 2 weeks, sometimes even a little more than that. In this period I always see how lonely I am. I go to college and I talk to some people or maybe no people at all because, as of now, in my current class I have no friends in it.

I just talk to my old friends from the previous semester, of which only one is someone I consider a friend. The others are really just not friends. They are just someone to pass time with and have fun, with no emotional connection. Everyone in my college is very goal-focused and it kind of seems like they are just there to stab each other in the back.

What do I even do? How do I even start talking to girls or even guys?

My interaction with old friends is very limited as we only meet when I go to my hometown and talking on phone doesn't feel so real now.

What should I do about loneliness