Without going into too much detail, I had severe depression for numerous years at university and went through near complete isolation during this time. Needless to say, I got nowhere socially.

I am finally breaking out of it and doing much better, having just left university and started a new job; much more confident, making far more effort, and get a lot of very fleeting attention from women. Approach anxiety is still causing me problems but I can work on that. The main problem - and this is a big one - is that after so many years of isolation I have absolutely zero conversational skills/content at all. I'm stuck in catch 22: I'm really boring and have nothing to talk about, because I've had very few social contacts/experiences in recent years, because I'm really boring... and the cycle goes on.

I go to bars a lot and strike up conversations, but every time someone shows interest, I just end up throwing them off because I feel no amount of confidence, looks and game can replace the lack of interesting words coming out of my mouth. It's utterly depressing seeing missed opportunity after missed opportunity.

So seddit - how the fuck do I break this cycle? I'm going to try and join some sports clubs and such (already lift but the gym I find to be a tricky place to get talking to people at all). I have spent plenty of quality time with the sidebar but haven't really found much related to this kind of situation. What else can I do to stop being such a wet flannel in every conversation?