Half of the people here probably bump into each other in the break room every day at Langley and Quantico.

Some of the more prolific posters here comment on seemingly everything. It might be intimidating for if you’re just starting out and/or have more narrow interests. But I promise you, if you make your own posts, people will respond well. Did something happen in your day? What game are you playing? What are you reading? Is there any drama in your family.

I’m probably 3x your age, but you’re welcome to dm me with stuff.

you can’t spell FriEnD without FED

hang out and chat at movie night, trade socials with people you vibe with, pop on the minecraft server…

the cheat code is being trans

We are all comrades here.

You call each other a liberal until kissing

i think it takes time, i think people start to recognize posters over a period of time and then eventually the stars will align and you’ll have a over the course of a few days … and if it happens more than once, well, then I mean I guess you’re friends now. After a while you start to feel comfortable … maybe one of you asks for a Matrix account, or you DM on the bearzone… and uh then sometimes things evolve from there but I digress

but fr idk I have no idea how to intentionally do it, it feels totally by accident and its kinda scary to think about how if i missed a post or two i wouldn’t have met or gotten close to at least two people who have had a big impact on my life, but lol I am so so so glad to have taken a chance and posted a bunch.

It’ll happen when you aren’t looking for it. I have people here I’d consider friends, but I didn’t make any conscious effort to make that happen. I just posted when I thought I had something worth saying and ended up clicking with people.

I think one of the things that works is finding users who you particularly enjoy having exchanges with, often the ones who you find sharing an overlap in interests with and who spends time in the same comms and who seems to enjoy replying to you (especially if the comment exchange goes for more than one or two replies).

The next step is usually connecting with them via DM or exchanging socials. Usually this is easier if you have a purpose for contacting them rather than trying to strike up a discussion from nowhere.

There is the visual cuisine which happens once a week, I think, and is announced in masterposts like this upcoming one. There’s a chatroom in there which you can use to engage with others. There are other events like a peer support space that I try to run at least every week or so via the game Webfishing, although that might not necessarily suit your interests.

I’ve seen comrade CorgiWithALaptop invite people to impromptu viewing sessions via the visual cuisine cytube space but idk how that works exactly, but I think they set a good example of how to invite people to hang out.

I think this stuff is kinda hard to navigate as someone who is autistic because understanding the nuances of the whole thing can be kinda tricky, speaking from personal experience. Not to say that you should self-segregate but you might find it easier to try a comm which could be more accommodating such as the neurodiverse comm or to ask the mods there if they would consider helping you set something up via that comm if you feel like you would benefit from getting some assistance with connecting with other users or organising a group activity like a watch party via cytube, for example.

But I tought we were all friends

It is like fight club. You aren’t supposed to talk about it. However you gotta talk about it. People break opsec here and there. Which is bad and we need to acknowledge that.

I told them I have information that will lead to the arrest of Hilary Clinton

I’d like to think we’re all friends here. Through the course of posting and getting replies and talking you’ll develop some.degree of relationship with other users. Sometimes I don’t really know where it came from. I feel like say @LocalOaf@hexbear.net and I are constantly in each other’s inboxes cause we’re doing a bit in some thread, it just kinda happened and now it’s a name I look for. Always love a @Frank@hexbear.net post and we’ve had some fantastic chats and of course there’s @Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net who’s posting history should give any newcomer a great idea of site culture as well as proper owl hygiene (none)

I’ve never met anyone from here irl if that’s what you mean. Honestly I have a hard time remembering who is who, except for a few prolific posters with memorable names and/or profile pics.