how do you find irl friens?

been living in a not-very-big city for a couple of years as a foreigner and studying in a local uni but still haven't had anything more than a small (not even 5 min) talk in polish.

im too shy to initiate a convo with someone in uni and the people i study with havent tried much either.

currently having praktyki in a district court and it makes me interact with people a lot more daily but the place is mostly full of 40+ yr old women (im 20M) and still no conversations (though they constantly talk to eachother about, well, regular stuff that older women talk about like their children/grandchildren/vacations/politics etc none of which im super into). i cant say theyre unfriendly or anything, quite the opposite, theyre very helpful and joke around often and the atmosphere there is rather non-stressful but still.

iv tried looking for friends online (reddit, facebook, tinder) but to no avail either. texted some people for several weeks or even months but then we eventually got bored with eachother and stopped talking

feeling hopeless at this point. how will i ever reach my goal of finding a bf if i cant even talk with anyone for 10 mins, let alone make an actual friend