Socializing is very draining for me. I'm not sure if it's my social anxiety or introversion. I like talking to new / different people. It's just, doing small talk and trying to start convos is suffocating. And approaching new people is hard because of the social anxiety.

I have about four friends at school rn, and at this point I feel like it's "enough" since it feels exhausting to keep up with many people, but none of my friends are close. None of us talk much (despite me always trying to think of things to say / start convos, which I've stopped doing now to protect my energy). But like, I still want to grow out of this social anxiety thing.

I feel like being with understanding people where there's no expectation of having to speak, so I can just sit quietly with them would be really nice and I wouldn't feel drained, but these kind of people are hard to come across.