I am going to disagree with almost all of the advice about studying abroad or joining a club. Those are well-intended, but they are addressing the symptoms, not the cause. Judging from these descriptions:
> I’m socially anxious and keep to myself
> small talk tends to bore me
> it’s exhausting always having to text them to hang out, if I don’t then we never talk again
It's highly possible that you have undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder. I say this because I am reading a book right now about ASD[0] and a lot of this is ringing true, especially the part about being confused why friends are dropping you. Speak to a psychologist and see what they think (or read the book first, and then speak to them). I am 30 now and am just cluing in that I might be on the spectrum, and oh boy do I wish I had caught it when I was younger. (It's also possible that you don't have ASD but some other condition like avoidant personality disorder, but whatever it is, it is so much easier to solve it once you've figured it out.)
By that measure, the people who had their life savings in FTX (and Celsius and Luna before that) have certainly succeeded.
Investing in total-market index funds is the single best strategy for the average investor. (In fact it's so good there's a proof! [1]) If you invested $10000 in the total US market in 1992 (30 years ago) and never touched it again, your inflation-adjusted balance today would be $72452 [2]. That's an insane 7x of real growth that requires absolutely no effort on your part. Even if you did a more conservative mix of 60% stock and 40% bond (VBMFX) you would have 4.5x real growth.
> I’m socially anxious and keep to myself
> small talk tends to bore me
> it’s exhausting always having to text them to hang out, if I don’t then we never talk again
It's highly possible that you have undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder. I say this because I am reading a book right now about ASD[0] and a lot of this is ringing true, especially the part about being confused why friends are dropping you. Speak to a psychologist and see what they think (or read the book first, and then speak to them). I am 30 now and am just cluing in that I might be on the spectrum, and oh boy do I wish I had caught it when I was younger. (It's also possible that you don't have ASD but some other condition like avoidant personality disorder, but whatever it is, it is so much easier to solve it once you've figured it out.)
[0]: https://www.isthisautism.com/