Hey, first time poster here, one year lurker, just created this alt. Hope I can get some advice where I can't get advice elsewhere.

A little bit on my background. I've grown up around extreme betas my entire life and spoonfed religion, and pretty much have been conditioned not to hit on girls, with very little female contact. I haven't really had role models and I've been hanging around religious betas who also grew up like me. I've never even been on a date and can't trust my friends with TRP; hence, I'm here. But enough of that, I'm not here to complain or look for pity.

I'm now halfway through college and am proud of who I'm becoming, and I realize I still need to make drastic changes. So far I've cut out all my BB friends and religion (I'd been treating them like backups but I think that would actually hold me back), gained some muscle, and am now pledging a well-off mid-tier frat at a school full of nerds. But I need to do more.

I lack hard in the social department like maintaining social relations, forming deep connections and close friends, and hitting up girls who are interested, even though I have no fear of approaching (It's the conversation that I need to improve). I don't talk as much as I'd like to everyone. In the frat it seems like all my pledge bros have formed their own little cliques already, and at the last party I went to, being a pledge I had to stay sober but I had a shitty time conversing and introducing myself to groups of people I know mostly only by name (I know that's on me). I'm afraid of getting close to people because I think I'm gonna come off as needy, and I'm also afraid of hitting them up to do something for the same reason. I'm also afraid of hookup culture and sex, since I've been conditioned my entire life to know it as taboo.

How can I get over these mental hurdles? It seems like these have been haunting me for a long time and are even harder to conquer than eating fucking rubbery chicken breasts all the time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks for reading.