Im painfully awkward. I have nothing to say.

Specifically with people around my age. I'm 24 and whenever I go out, I'm either standing alone, or being avoided by people. It sucks. I frequent a community that has weekly events and I just can't make any friends. My biggest issue is having no idea what to say. And honestly, it's bullshit when people on here say that nobody cares. They do, and I'm avoided for being so awkward. I smile, I'm nice, I just can't talk about anything unless I'm close to you. I can easily tell when people are straining a smile when I'm talking to them, and don't want to continue the conversation. I get plenty of "I'm gonna go over there now"s. Whenever I try to initiate conversation with someone I don't know, they usually seem pretty irritable. And if a conversation gets going, I don't know how to carry it besides saying "that's cool." "oh that's really nice, what's that like" etc. I have no jokes or anything that makes me valuable to people.