Social anxiety is not the reason you don't have friends.

I started college recently and realized I somehow beat my social anxiety. I don't get those "fight or flight" feelings anymore. I spent a good part of years after high school locked in my room, isolated from human contact, so I don't think the social anxiety fading came from any amount of my own intentional effort. It just happened with time, so unfortunately I can't give any advice.

But anyway. Did anything change as far as connecting with people?

No.

Even when pushing myself to talk to people, exchange contacts, invite them to hang out, etc. we just plain don't click. I have to force myself to talk just to avoid awkward silence. That's not a good sign, is it?

I spent a good deal of my life agonizing over my social anxiety, thinking I would be a social butterfly if it just wasn't for that darn social anxiety. Turns out, the social anxiety had nothing to do with it. How you feel about a problem won't change anything about the problem. Does that make sense? If you're homeless you could be bummed about it at first, then your attitude changes to indifference. But you're still homeless. The problem is still there. In my case, I was a person with social anxiety who had difficulty making real friends. I'm still that person, just without the social anxiety.

I can't tell you how to beat social anxiety, but what I can tell you is that beating it won't change your social situation. Unfortunately.