how does one make friends online? 
I'm very bad at it
I can sort of manage it offline but it seems harder in the digital realm, at least for me
@magical If you ever figure it out, let me know
@PixiePrincess I'll shout it from the rooftops
@PixiePrincess (I assume the answer'll turn out to be something along the lines of "don't be so shy", which isn't super useful advice, but...)
@magical I have the opposite problem 😭
… maybe we can timeshare our respective friends? 
@kirby what's your secret??
@magical You first! 😆
(In all seriousness: I just… find it easy to talk to people online? I don't know why… and finding cool people online is super easy, imo. Plenty of cool people here on Mastodon, and on IRC, and even on centralized platforms. And they I just reply to something they post, and we talk a bit, and then I say "want to be my best friend forever" but I don't actually type that… 🤷 )
@kirby what seems to work for me offline is to find groups. for example, in college I met several people i would consider friends through the Linux users group. more recently, i've been going to a local nb meet up and i'm starting to make friends through that. i'm usually super shy at first, but after a few meetings to get comfortable around people it's easier to open up.
@kirby of course, there's a big leap from knowing someone in a group to saying, "hey, you're cool, let's do something together outside the group". I'm really bad at it and it's something a want to work on. BUT in the meantime, just attending social groups like that fulfills a lot of my socialization needs. and it feels a lot better than twitter.
on masto and birdsite it's far too easy for me to fall into the habit of reading but not posting or responding, and I don't know how to break past that.