Hello seddit,

I am 23 y/o student.

While I do have friends, My circles are very limited.

Whenever I get to a new place in my life (school, college, job, etc...) I find myself connecting to a few people quite quickly, essentially creating a small group of maybe 3,4 or 5 friends.

The problem is that once I have the safety of that group, I can never seem to make any more friends, or connect to any other people.

I feel like something is preventing me from connecting to other people, once I have my few friends, I'm almost never alone and have no need for extending my circles...

Whenever I socialize with someone new, I feel almost like I'm betraying my group, and more often than not I'll hurry back to the safety of my friends.

At the same time, friends in my group might just socialize with other people with no particular problem.

This also prevents me from getting to know any girls, since whenever I go out with my friends to parties or what-not, I also find it hard to leave the comfort of my friends.

It's as if I have the social skills only when I feel desperate, like when coming to a new place.

In addition, I also feel like when people look at my group from the outside they see me as very open and fun person, but whenever I'm by myself I probably seem very quiet and shy, maybe even a creep, and this makes me feel even weirder about connecting to those "outside" people.

I think I have myself fully analyzed, yet I can't seem to shake off that awkwardness.

Any advice? Thanks!