I have always thought of my self as someone who isn’t bad at conversation. I can generally ask and answer questions in ways that keep conversations moving, I am a good listener, ect. The issue is that I haven’t figured out how to talk to people I don’t know or haven’t talked to much. I can tell myself things like “nothing bad will happen if you try to talk to someone you don’t know” and “it isn’t weird to try to make small talk with people,” and I know these things are objectively true. The problem is that when I actually try to talk to someone, either I make some excuse to myself to not talk to them (like “oh they sort of look busy” or “they have earbuds in, they must not be in the mood to talk at all”) or I go back to thinking things like “what am I doing, why am I trying to make conversation, obviously people just don’t like talking to me” or I just freeze up for no particular reason. And then the moment passes, and I realize I should have at least tried to have a conversation with them, and I get really frustrated at myself for not doing so. I’m just looking for advice on how what to do about this, or some way to look at situations like this in a different perspective.
Sorry if this is ranty and/or hard to read, I’m stressed, frustrated, and tired.
TL;DR: I think my mindset is right, but I can’t get myself to try to talk to people I don’t know very well or at all, no matter how hard I try.