It is for me too, but in the end, practice made it so much easier. It took years and some guidance from a therapist, but it worked. “I want to meet more people” was one of those problems that took me year to properly work on.

I think that the core problem was similar: I was willing to make an effort, but did not have a clear idea of how to do it.

Well, happy it worked for you.

For me, I've taught myself to socialize, but it takes lots of masking to do so, which means lots of energy, and failures are pretty hard on me.

Right, trying and failing at socializing is not fun at all.

I had unexpected amounts of fun at long multi-day raves. You get into altered mental states (even without substances) and don't have to talk to people but also you can.