How do people keep making friends on this place? I have been here since 14, yet I still have no friends.

I know you're supposed to join collabs or draw stuff or whatever, that is common advice, but even then, I do that, and there are no results. There's more to this than what's on the surface. The joining collabs thing is just a starting point; I know nothing else beyond that.

When I join collabs, think of it like this meme:

What do you do in this situation?

I know that there is more to do than just joining collabs, so I must take some sort of initiative.

I don't usually have much to say, and I don't know what I am supposed to say.

You can't just ask random people that you want to be friends with, but they don't even know you, "Do you want to be my friend?", because that's just dodgy.

You cannot just message or interact with people whom you've never even interacted with before, because then that's also dodgy.

And you also can't just join in a conversation, they never asked for your presence, and even then, what do you say?

You are unable to start small talk because you are just forcing them into a conversation they never asked them to be in, and what do you even talk about in that case?

What can you even do?