It depends on your life situation and it’s not something you can just press a button to fix, but on the other hand it’s not going to get better if you ignore it. Things that may help depending on your circumstance:

• Therapy

• Taking an in-person class or joining a club

• If you already have nearby friends, start a regular game night

• Visit a ‘third space’ at a consistent time weekly, e.g. coffee shop, bar, library, gym (note: the point is not to practice pickup lines, it’s to get used to being around people. If you go regularly, you’ll start to feel comfortable with the other regulars)

There are more and I would be interested in hearing if the ones above don’t work. I am a pure introvert who kind of lucked my way into a relationship. I still would be happy on a desert island forever but I can recognize that human connection gives me a reason to perform maintenance on my flesh prison, keeps my mental acuity up to stave off the inevitable dementia, and provides a different perspective on reality when I get stuck in a rut.

I want to reiterate that this is not a ‘fix’, but a process of self improvement. Particularly in the beginning, it’ll be mostly unpleasant and hard to stick with. If it’s working, you will be exposed to uncomfortable realities that you will have to process. After you have been doing it awhile, though, you’ll start to have small wins that can snowball into being the person you want to be.

N.b. I went through this process in my early 20s, so lots of alcohol and hard drugs were involved and made the process easier or maybe harder than it would have been otherwise. I have managed to get appropriately medicated now and probably would approach things differently if I had to do it over again, but the point is to consider ways to work around your personal brain chemistry early on. Maybe anxiety medication, ADHD meds, or just exercise. Obviously your mileage may vary but these are things that can be tried in some cases.