one way i learned to have better conversations with people (which lead to me having better relationships with them) is self expression. that's one thing i used to struggle with, nd still struggle with at times to express when I'm happy about something, excited about something, sad/angry about another thing were all things I struggled with one way I began to overcome this is by using simple sentences to express my thoughts/feelings... like "hey, I really appreciate how you text me when you want to share something you saw randomly " or "I really adore your thinking process" or when somebody crosses a boundary "that did not sit right with me" ... or if im sad "I appreciate you offering to stay beside me but I'd rather be left alone for the moment" I mean I did use to express myself but not this fluently. which eventually lead to having boring and very draining convos, and slowly pushing the other person away. the thing that stopped me from being this clear earlier was because I thought to express myself meant to use very difficult words and to explain constantly, but that's not the case, and you can see that from the examples I've given and personally another way this lack of self expression has affected me was not being able to hold difficult conversations, I wouldn't avoid them, but since I felt uncomfortable sharing my thoughts and feelings, the convo wouldn't last long ... which thankfully is improving if you struggle with the same thing, start small, say simple sentences, don't look back, and don't be afraid to be inconvenient or to "take space"