I'm about to enter my 4th year of university soon and have been making an effort to improve my social skills. It's a bit more difficult at this stage because everyone seems to already have their friends and isn't as interested in meeting new people. I've spoken to many people and made some friends throughout my years in university, but these are mostly "in-class friends", people I just talk to when we have the same class together. It's difficult for me to form deeper connections with others because I often worry about potentially offending people when discussing deeper topics, and it doesn't help that it takes me 1+ hours to commute to campus, making it a little harder to make plans outside of class.
There is a group of people that I often talk to and sit with during lectures, and I'd like to know how I could become better friends with these people. These guys are pretty nice people, we share a lot of the same humor, and I already have a friendly relationship with a lot of them, but I often see them coming into lectures, leaving these lectures, and making plans with each other, and I feel a bit left out knowing I'm not as close with them as they are with each other, despite having a good standing (though, not close) with most of them individually.
I've gone to get food with these guys after class a few times in an effort to break out of my shell a bit, but it kind of felt like I was just following them, and looking back, nobody directly asked me to come; I just came along because I was there when they were talking about it. I never want to ask to hang out because I don't want to be intrusive, and I believe that if I'm not invited, I shouldn't ask to come. I feel like, at this point, if they wanted me to hang out with them, they would have asked, so I wonder if I'm just that annoying guy that they tolerate, but are too nice to tell me directly that they don't like my presence.
How do I go about forming a deeper connection with these people or figuring out if they actually just don't like me?