I believe I’m meant to be alone

This is a bit of a rant, but I’ve given up looking for friendships at this point. Never been part of anyone’s inner circle, I don’t have long-term friends, neither do I have friends. All my life I’ve felt like an outsider and like I’ve never belonged anywhere. I’m an only child and I’ve always felt lonely in general. My other family members have big families so they forget about me and I have to initiate conversations first. They mostly never message me unless I message them. Even the cousins I grew up with are always busy with their friends and they have really nice close group of friends from childhood but life has never offered me that luck.

I have had “friends” (they’re all just good acquaintances) but never a best friend or a group of mine. I’m mostly just a floater who floats around groups but everyone I have been friendly with have their own close group which I’m never involved in. I don’t want to be a floater, but I can’t do anything about it.

I don’t understand though because I’m always friendly and outgoing which many people say I am, but this just never helps me. I’ll meet someone, we’ll have good conversation and I’ll be excited hoping it goes somewhere but we just become good acquaintances or surface level friends at best, never actual friends and I’m so tired of it.

I’m always the one to reach out to people, but they never seem interested in reaching out to me or approaching me. They’ll view my social media 1 second after I post something but will never message me. What is the point? It’s always people I don’t want (people who are just users), don’t vibe with (we are always very different and it shows) or the opposite gender (they always have boyfriends and I’m a hetero male) that always want to make an effort. There are people that I’ll be interested in approaching because I feel like we’d be cool but they’ll see me and not approach me, or if I do try to have a conversation it’s like I’m forcing it so I just quit. Next time they see me, they still don’t be interested to approach.

Even in university, I’ve managed to find a “friendship” group but yet again they’re more closer to each other and I recently heard that they all go out most times without inviting me and it made me feel like shit. What is it about me that I can never be in an inner circle or be interesting enough for someone. I’ve stopped approaching people because I’m tired of making surface level friendships and being the only one making an effort. Why can’t people make the effort with me? What am I doing wrong? On birthdays, I don’t have a strong enough bond with people to invite, it’s just family and I feel like a loser because all my cousins have close friends in their parties.

This has given me some social awkwardness because now I’m always conscious about how I act or talk and I don’t like this. I’m also very angry and bitter when I’m in social settings because it reminds me of how alone I am. Maybe I’m just meant to be alone. I’m an only child with one parent in my life, and never successful with friends, so why bother I guess.