Unsure what to do

I want to make new friends, but I’m too different from the people around me who I see as just a monolith, mostly with the same clothes and personality and hobbies. I know that my seeing people as a monolith has to change, because everybody is so different from each other and from what you see at first glance. However I’m too afraid to get to know new people and give them a chance, because they might not be what I’m looking for and they may not even want to genuinely be friends.

I’m hoping that one day I can have the kind of deep, meaningful friendship I’m looking for, but I feel too different from others around me and like there’s nobody for me. I’ve always been the last priority friend, the one who does 100% of the reaching out and who is always third wheel, so I’m wondering if there’s something wrong with me that needs to change before I can meet somebody. But how can I figure out what that is, and then develop that? What could it be that makes people gravitate away from me?

People are nice enough to me and they greet me, but even though I always make sure to return the greeting and ask then how they are, nothing much ever comes out of it, and if we actually do talk, we don’t see each other again often enough to build off of that. I’m fairly active within my institution, and I join lots of things, but none of them are really social because we just listen to the leader of the group most of the time.

What could it be? Can somebody tell when another person is really aloof, or not confident? Do I need to gain self esteem before I can connect with somebody? Is there just nobody who is the right person for me to be friends with? Maybe I just need to greet somebody, but it makes me nervous because I don’t want to talk to somebody in hopes of making friends and have nothing meaningful come out of it, or to have them be too different from me. I feel like more people would like me if I were more confident and “powerful”, so to speak, and I do want to develop that and my self esteem, but how do I do that, and would people like me if I were more confident?