Hi, since I’ve started using Lemmy, I’ve been running into the same people and having something approaching a relationship with them–even if it’s mostly imaginary.
It got me to wondering if there’s a community or form of community available on the internet that I haven’t tried yet that might actually lead to something approaching having friends.
So far Discord has been extremely meh; but I’ve heard of Mastodon and Peertube and Matrix and all kinds of weird stuff that is outside the mainstream.
Anyone have better success with different protocols?
I think this is a really interesting question.
I’ve had a bit of luck on Discord getting to know people better, but only really on smaller and more well-managed/curated niche servers. And even then it’s usually related to casual gaming where there are community projects of interactions.
I haven’t had that anywhere else, with the exception of a subreddit I moderated years ago, where I’m still in contact with and chat to the other mods (even though most of us have either gone dormant in that community or left reddit altogether).
I don’t really use Mastodon or Bluesky, and I don’t think they are especially conducive to deeper connections. I’ve tried using Matrix a few times but I find the UI poor to the point of being nearly unusable. Stoat (a Discord alternative) looks promising but it’s still a bit of a work in progress with a very limited userbase.
Where I HAVE had a lot of luck: local hobby communities I’ve got into. Stuff like casual sports or niche interests.
ETA: I’m not autistic myself, but I have some close family members who are, so this community is near and dear to my heart.
I agree re: Mastodon. It does allow you to follow people, which Lemmy lacks. But I’ve made deeper* connections here then there.
*still quite shallow, but I know a bit of their personal life, while in mastodon, not.
I think getting to know people requires unstructured chat and some sense of privacy (or at least not metaphorically shouting from the rooftops).
Oh, hey, are you the guy that said you’d be my friend? I think maybe voyager let me note that, but the desktop does not.
Not sure, but I’m game. You can never have too many friends and I certainly could use one. I remember us talking about jobs, friendship and diagnosis.
The note feature of Voyager is on the client, so it doesn’t get syncd with other interfaces.