With all that being said, let me make a list of things that I suggest you do and the direction you should probably start off in:
1. Not only ADMITTING you have a problem, but making a list of goals you want to acheive to fix that problem. List ALL the things you want to accomplish in your life. What job you want, what kind of girl you want, where you want to live, what you want to do with your free time, etc. And then you make sublists underneath of each of those of all the solutions you can possibly think of. The more you start brainstorming, the more your mind will start working to form a solution.
2. Next, you've got to GET OUT. Get out of your house and PUT YOURSELF in social situations. Trust me, this is going to be painful for you, because it's COMFORTABLE for you to stay at home by yourself. You KNOW you aren't going to get rejected. You KNOW you aren't going to be judged. You also know that you are going to have the pain of being lonely, but in your mind you've justified that that pain is less than the pain of putting yourself out there. REMOVE THAT NEGATIVE THOUGHT RIGHT NOW!
3. Next, you want to start with something simple. Take a solid week of just getting out of your house (even if it's just going and walking around the mall or the store for several hours--key word "several!"). After than, you want to spend some time getting comfortable with yourself. Pay attention to the way you talk, the way you walk, the way you stand, etc. Go to a social place, and RELAX your body. Focus entirely on RELAXING yourself in this public place. Watch your breathing patterns and slow them down. Relax your stiffness, hold your head up straigth and stand up straight (don't slouch). Get comfortable doing that. Comn! This is the easy part! Spend a week of constantly doing that, and then raise the bar again! Now, you are going to go to a public place and SEARCH, yes SEARCH, for people's eyes. You're not going to talk to them, you are going to simply make eye contact and hold it for as LONG as you can. Push yourself to do this because this is the foundation of everything else you can do! Eye contact is amazingly hard to accomplish for shy people because eye contact is a sign of confidence, and you don't have that. But you are going to put it in there! Spend as much time as you NEED doing this. Do it until you can hold eye contact with someone until THEY turn their eyes away from you. Then, move on to the next step. Greeting them! Nothing more, nothing less. Just a simple "Hi!" or "Hey!" or "how you doing?". You are not going to engage them in conversation, you are simply going to make eye contact and then say hi. Comn, now, think about it! What could POSSIBLY go wrong with that? There is no risk to that whatsoever! There is literally no rejection here. You are simply exercising a social muscle and building a base of confidence in yourself. You're simply pushing yourself to do a little more until you can at least get comfortable with making eye contact and greeting EVERYBODY that you meet. Trust me, my friend, this is HUGE. If you can get yourself to this point, then man, you've just instilled a sense of confidence in yourself. You've won a major battle!
3. After this, though, you are going to start putting yourself on the line a little bit. Not only are you going to make eye contact and greet people, you are now going to start a conversation with strangers. Don't worry, by the time you do all the other stuff I have mentioned so far, this won't seem as intimidating as it does to you right now. Believe that. The interesting thing about conversation is that it really isn't as hard as it seems to you, the shy person. In a lot of ways, it's just a game. I like to use Tennis as an example. Conversation is like tennis in that you and the person you are talking to is "lobbing" information back and forth to each other, just like tennis players hitting balls back and forth. The key is to realize that if you "catch" the ball, and hold it, the conversation dies, just like the game stops in tennis when you hold the ball. Examples of catching the ball include things like just saying "yeah" or "uh huh" or even just laughing nervously or being totally silent. Examples of lobbing the serve back across the net would be like someone asking how you are doing and instead of saying "fine" you say "I'm good, how are you?" See? By asking a QUESTION you are returning their serve.
Now the key to this is, that you are going to a set a goal for yourself. Something small for you. You are going to designate 3 nights a week at first, and in that night you have to approach ONE person (guy or girl it doesn't matter at this point) that you DON'T know and try to initiate a conversation wtih them. Just one person. That's like 15 minutes of pain each approach. It's not that bad. But it's forcing you to do something that is paralyzing to you.
After all of that, and if you are still going at this point, THEN AND ONLY THEN are you ready to start going after girls. See, if you don't build natural social skills then you are going to have an EXTREMELY hard time with women. But by forcing yourself to take these steps, you've built in yourself a base of confidence and you've also got some experiences to fall back on.
I also suggest getting active. Nothing helps you more than action. Join a gym. Start exercising and eating right. Start biking, hiking, canoeoing, rock climbing, skydiving. fishing, hunting, whatever! The sky is the limit. Swimming, skiing, etc. It's all out there, but make yourself get active. Start playing a sport. Join some local community clubs. Hook up with a charity. Hell, join a support group. You may think this is silly, but you could try an AA meeting or two and try to apply their 12 step programs to your situation.
Anyways, that's my crash course on building confidence and overcoming shyness. It's also a way to make new frienlds, get healthy, and get your life in order. When you fix the inside, I'm telling you, the outside will come natural. The girls will follow. When you build your own world, you'll have girls around you that want you, and you can bring them into that world.
Understand? It's a lot to digest, but take it to heart. You'll understand why I said it'll probably take a couple of years to get through all of this, but I promise you that if you drive yourself to do a little bit more each day, you WILL get the results you want. I promise.
