Help Getting a friend via tinder

[ArtsyDrawer]

Allegedly, it's not impossible. I'd prefer a female friend despite being deathly afraid of women. As to why I'm afraid of women (specifically, talking with women face to face), that's some kind of mistery not even a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a neuropsychologist could answer. I'm serious, I asked all three. It's not enough to throw me into a loonie bin, though.
Practically, turns out I'm an asshole and can't hold a conversation. Not unexpected, seeing as I have no friends IRL. Coworkers? Sure, certainly, one keeps trying to do small talk with me, and I keep telling him to stfu, but that's another story. Tinder showed that it's not impossible to get a proper friend through it, though you'd have to be extremely blunt about it, and keep the CTB theme out of your profile, obviously, but herein comes the main issue: holding a conversation.
I can do good in a group chat or a discord server - there are a bunch of people, and I can jump between several conversations. One person, 1vs1 is quite a bit more tricky. I've attempted to solve this by googling and researching how to keep a conversation going. Other than "make the other person talk, didn't find much useful information. There are quite a few "conversation starters", but I found most of them stupid and boring.
I'm certain there are people here that are far better than I am about holding conversations. Help a dude out, train a dude if you're willing to go that far!

 

[Beautifulletdown]

Good luck my friend. I wish there was constructive advice I could give you, but people tend to dump me. Wishing you the best..really.

 

[Futility]

Hi, I used to be SO bad at having conversations, let alone maintain eye contact, my best friend had to actually sit me down and practice simply looking at him without freaking out and having panic attacks.
As for having conversations, I've always been really good at online interaction, but having face to face conversation is still something I struggle with, I can't even stop to compliment someone's style if I see someone who's impressed me.

Getting a dog of all things helped me a lot, I forced myself to go to the park, and because people love dogs, people would come to me to talk about the dog, the attention was shifted off of me and onto my dog, I had something in common with the stranger talking because of this, it made it so much easier and gave me access to the training I needed by having an icebreaker.

I also play a lot of video games, I join people's discord servers and sometimes I end up actually speaking to people, and again, because we have something in common and trying to achieve a goal, there's no awkward silence, making it easier to practise talking and making friends along the way.

Eventually I became so good at small talk that I've been walking away with people's phone numbers, I go to clubs now, I've got a pretty decent amount of acquaintances as well as a few very close friends.

You think this is something that would help you? Service animals/emotional support animals are a very powerful tool.
Also going to places you're actually interested in, will help, if you hate drunk people, making friends at a bar is a horrible idea because of the crowd it attracts, instead go to, let's say a laser-tag arena, if you like that sort of thing.
But it won't change in a day, it is very difficult to put the work into pretending to be normal out there to the point people don't notice that you're having some difficulties. I am not going to sugar coat it, because I don't think that's gonna help you one bit.

I would have some sessions with you myself, but unfortunately I do not have internet fast enough for a video conference as I just moved into a new place, just can't afford it.
Perhaps doing this with someone from here that don't judge you and understand you would actually give you the springboard you need?

 

[Beautifulletdown]

I hope someone reached out to support you in what you were requesting. Again, wishing you the best.