This is honestly a thread I kinda circled back to a couple of times before ultimately deciding to form some kind of reply, which...took awhile, lmao. Admittedly I keep staring at my reply and only see this weird word salad, so I can only hope everything I wanted to say is in here and it is coherent to anybody who ends up reading it, lol.
Back before I started using TBT, I can't say I had a ton of success making friends online and I was very envious of those who were able to make friends online like it was nothing. But the most notable moment came near the end of 2018, when an internal change resulted in a breakthrough (as a personal aside, how the heck has it been 5 years since then?!?). I just managed to post a bunch on another forum I was on and clicked with a few people I was posting with, and we kinda just kept interacting on that forum and on Discord and became friends! We maintained our friendship well past when I left that forum and when it disappeared from the internet through a Discord server we were all in, though unfortunately that server ended up being deleted in 2021. I still periodically chat with some of them from time to time, though it hasn't been as easy keeping up as when we were in that server!
idk how many of them will ever see this but just know that I care about and miss you POM crew 
As for TBT itself, well, I'm not gonna lie, it's been a struggle for me to make friends on here. But I also recognize part of that is on me, which I'll get to. But considering I managed to make a friend outside of my team during the latest CBT by simply reaching out, it's definitely possible and is what inspired me to actually post in here!
Personally, what I think it comes down to is just interacting with one another. Whether it's through posting towards them in a thread, posting on their profile, sending them a DM through TBT or Discord or what have you, or anything else, if one side reaches out to the other and they start interacting, that is what starts the friendship process. Then if you vibe with them and they feel the same way about you, that friendship is able to grow and blossom through repeated interactions. Maybe your personalities mesh well with one another, maybe you share some common interests, maybe you share similar viewpoints, whatever the case may be, when there's common ground, that allows for the interactions to keep happening and the friendship to form.
Still, the reaching out process is tricky, since it does come down to things like comfort and familiarity with the other user and how you feel about being the one to reach out in general. I do feel like there's a lot of people here in the same boat where they might see somebody post and might be interested in talking to them and getting to know them more, but they struggle feeling comfortable with being the one who reaches out first. Admittedly I'm one of those people. It's been a struggle to reach out and it's so much easier if the people I want to talk to reach out to me first so I know they do want to talk to me too, but that's admittedly been part of my problem and has led to these vicious cycles internally where I begin to tunnel vision on the negatives and nitpick anything that helps my confirmation bias of feeling lonely and so on. Personally, I've felt like the best way for me to break free of that cycle is to focus on what I can control. In this instance, that's being the one who reaches out to people first, so that way I'm not wondering why other people aren't reaching out to me. As tough as it can be to reach out first due to my own personality and internal factors, it's definitely something I want to improve on!
though that said, obviously don't hesitate to PM me if you want to talk to me lmao
Even if you don't feel comfortable reaching out yet, I feel like sometimes doing small things can go a long way to show you do care and are thinking about them, as it can be hard at times to get a grasp on how people feel about you on the internet. Maybe it's wishing them a happy birthday, maybe it's gifting them some Christmas Lights or a Valentine's Rose or another collectible they've got their eye on, maybe it's sending them some TBT, maybe it's surprising them with some art, maybe you follow them, maybe it's something as simple as reacting to their posts, or anything else, really! These kind gestures do build up over time and can help both sides get more comfortable and closer to becoming friends.
As well, it's worth talking about how you even really find users who you want to be friends with. That part is definitely tricky. At a surface level, without any events, it'd mainly just be through looking at the threads, looking at the posts and seeing who shares similar opinions as you or whose posts you end up enjoying. But since you aren't necessarily interacting with one another a lot of the time, it goes back to what I said about it being difficult to reach out. Even with events, it's hard since as great as the individual events are, they can also feel lonely at times and lead to the same problem.
I think this is where team events are huge. They are the easiest way to connect with a bunch of users in a short amount of time. Like they've really helped me connect with so many users that I saw before but didn't really get the chance to interact with. As well, they allow you to see another side of users that can really help give you a better idea of who they are and whether or not you want to try and be friends with them. Even outside of team events, some other notable places where you can interact with other users that come to mind are the TBT Neighborly Game sessions where you can play (or sometimes spectate) games online with other users, and forum games like mafia whenever those games are run. Really, playing games like New Horizons and/or New Leaf together would also do the trick if you're able to extend it past basic trading!
I think it's also important to remember that how one defines somebody as a "friend" varies from person to person, as people have looser/tighter restrictions on when they'd call somebody a friend. Like I know my own definition was
waaaaaaaaaaaay too restrictive several years ago, and even now it sometimes feels maybe stricter than it should be. So sometimes it can seem like other people don't care, they aren't friends, and so on to one person, but in the other person's mind they feel like they are friends. That in turn can influence how they behave towards one another, which may cause how they feel to just linger on.
(Note: I'm obviously not trying to be critical of this, as it's more a part of human nature and our own personalities/mindsets and such, it's just an observation worth noting for those who find it hard to call people friends)
In a similar vein, it's also important to keep in mind that not everybody will necessarily be looking to make friends on here. Like when you look at the people who join this forum, I imagine a good chunk are looking for friends or some sort of social interaction, but there'll be those who are strictly focused on other things on the forums and/or are not interested in online friends, which is perfectly fine! It's definitely important not to try and force a friendship if the other person doesn't want to be friends for whatever reason. If that happens, don't get discouraged! There's a lot of people on the forums, you're never going to be able to get along and be friends with everybody, but if you're able to find those people who reciprocate your feelings and click with you, then that's all you need! After all, when it comes to friends, quality > quantity IMO.
One last thing I'll note is that sometimes these things take time! Even if you've been on the forums for awhile but haven't been able to make friends, that doesn't necessarily mean you're destined to never make friends here! I've definitely been there in thinking that way and feeling discouraged, but as tough as it is, it's important to just keep going and have that belief you can make friends on here. Sometimes the stars haven't aligned for you to be able to properly interact with somebody you'll be friends with in the future yet despite potentially seeing one another on the forums. Or maybe the people you'll be friends with will end up joining in the future. Whatever the case may be, continuing to be on here will always mean there's a chance that the opportunity will come along, whether it be now or in the future.
That's it for the word salad, which, haha oops, kinda got carried away and might've gone on a tangent there. But it is something I've thought about a lot over the course of this year, and even more during/after CBT, so I did want to share my own thoughts on the matter in case it's able to help anybody else out. Since I've definitely been in that position of wondering how and if I'd ever make friends here! But things are looking more positive for me in the TBT friends department! And I hope other people who want to make friends on here are able to make them! But, I guess just to summarize all that:
tl;dr: If you want to make friends on here, just reach out if you feel comfortable doing so! You never know what might happen!
I'm gonna make you a really nice Proud Friend of Goldi badge that you can wear everywhere.
