I went into UNI dedicated to leave it married. What's some advice to make the process easy?

Salam,

So I am in my first year of uni (18 - US - lots of Muslims at the UNI so thats good). Covid has kept me at home. I want to find my future righteous spouse and leave married. However, I want to keep things halal. My parents are OK with me getting married in UNI so thats not an issue. I think the hard part will be convincing a girl to like me. Not because I am unlikable.

Thing is, I'm always told about how you got to be funny to win her over. Put on a cheeky smile, get her to laugh, sprinkle in a few compliments. Whenever I mention that's pretty much flirting, I get some snickers back haha. I just don't have it in me to put on a fake persona. I don't really have a public social media for people to get to know me (except for FB which I dont post on). I tried muzmatch and minder to see what type of options I might have. Waste of time.

I guess the thing is is that I'm pretty young and I never really adapted the whole go-with-the-flow, act cool, be funny, etc. persona that many girls and guys still hold on to at this age. I'm sure this wouldn't be an issue if I were 25-30, BUT I'm not waiting until then.

I guess my question is, if I'm not going to take the whole be funny, get her social media/number, talk to her a lot approach, then what way do you suggest for me to leave a good impression without taking the traditional approach, being creepy, or showing off? And what is the best way to get to know a girl better and approach marriage once I've found a girl that I'm interested in.

Side note: I have had lots of success of developing good relationships with the elders, honestly, probably even better than that of my own age group.

jzkAllah Khare.