Can’t physically bring myself to speak to people?

I genuinely cannot speak to people unless i’m forced to or unless i have to ask an important question. I just started college and only spoke to somebody when the teacher came over and practically made me (not in a bad way, just nicely told us to ask something to each other, even then i just sort of started at the table and spoke cuz it just made a really uncomfortable situation where I didn’t really choose to speak or want to make eye contact). My parents are always telling me “just try and say hi” or “you’ll get over it” but something in my brain is genuinely not allowing me to do it and i feel like it’s just gotten worse as i got older, what’s worse is that the people in my class are either a lot older than me or don’t seem like the type of people to like me or hang out with me. I don’t really mind the quiet and i do have a few friends that attend the school(not in my class) or other schools but my parents keep warning me that i’ll be lonely and that sort of gets to my head.