Im so so sorry to hear that. You have my deepest condolences.

My beloved pet passed from heart failure a few months ago, so I’ve been grieving since. I’m finally getting to a point where I think more about her happy days than the finals days…but not by much. Everyday is a struggle.

Best wishes on your healing journey.

I met one of my closest friends on r/needafriend. Turns out, she lived like a 10 minute walk from me - and we met up over some food.

On paper, our friendship shouldn’t work. We have little in common in terms of activities and goals. But we know how to make each other laugh and ‘get’ each other’s personality. Been like 9 years.

Whether it’s Reddit, Lemmy, Discord or some other platform - there’s definitely people out there looking for the same things. Online is a good place to start.

See if your closest city has a ‘Speed Friending’ event. Here in Boston, we have “Skip the Small Talk” and you get seated with a stranger and a dialogue prompt. I found that to be really effective too.

It’s been rough since 6/30. I can barely browse and leave comments in my .world account. I’m sticking to .ml for now.

Before Netflix, there was Blockbuster.
Before YouTube, there was Metacafe and janky websites hosting Flash or Quicktime Player.
Before Spotify, there was PeopleSound and iTunes gift cards.
Before Discord, there was IRC and AOL Chatrooms.
Before Facebook, there was MySpace and Friendster.
Before iPhone, I had an LG Dare and Palm Pre. Good god!
Before Reddit, there was Digg, Slashdot and Fark.

Something better always comes along. Especially if that “better” is tied to a streamlined, easy to use, easy to learn UI.

Reddit would’ve never gotten as big as it did without third party support. Not just apps like Apollo, RIF and Narwhal - but tools like Imgur and RES.

Lemmy and “The Federation” (I’m not quite yet sold calling it the Fediverse…) has a lot of potential to be that “better than Reddit” online space. Nobody owns all of it, so there’s safeguards against the things that we’re blacked out.

And it’s partially why its a fixer-upper.

We, the community, are going to need to make Lemmy the space we want it to be. That means competition between instances and servers, that means user generated tools and content. I read the RIF developer is working on a Tildes app for iOS and Android. Mlem iOS app is in early Beta, but are working hard to have a stable release for 6/30. Jerboa’s out on Android already and folks seems to like it so far.

Give it time. We’re all new. And whether it’s here or somewhere else - we always land on our feet. Maybe the only thing we have in common with u/spez : there’s nowhere to fail but up.