Nobody is any good at a thing that they hardly ever do. Part of getting good at something is being willing to do it before you get good at it. This is a problem for people who are socially avoidant (as I've been myself.) We want to have some assurance of success before we will venture into interactions. That's a recipe for never developing any social skill. I try to tell myself that taking risks is okay, and failure is not the end of the world. I won't die if my attempt to socialize doesn't go too well.

We get attracted to going to therapists because we feel safe with them. But that just gets you more in the habit of only going into safe situations. It leads to a very boring life. And, of course, that's hard to be interested in.

We tend to think that no one will be interested in us. But people only get interested when they start to get to know us. It does get easier with practice.