@mbkriegh @khurtwilliams It took me three, maybe four years to finally settle in here. Really just in the past 18 months. And I agree with the both of you. I tend to go back and forth in my thinking about micro.blog and also Mastodon in terms of how I interact and what my intention is. I left FB long ago and while I still have an Instagram account I've not actively used it for 2 years. My interactions there were meaningless, just the usual likes as you mention. But I do have some family and local friends there. If Threads does federate I would follow and interact with those folks via Micro.blog.
In any case, I do find that my connections and interactions here have evolved over time to feel more real, more meaningful.
An interesting thing about micro.blog is that I get the sense that it is a small community (it feels like I see less than 100 regulars between the timeline and Discover feed) and so it feels small. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes not. I've written about it a few times, trying to understand it better but I've not made much progress.
I would speculate that a part of the dynamic that I feel is a reflection of the nature of the posts here. So much is brief, casual and of a simple nature. Or often nerdy, technical type discussions. And of course, many great photos. But it can take awhile for such casual, light, brief posts to amount to a sense of knowing or connecting.
Real, authentic community seems easier to build in a physical place, face-to-face. So much more can happen in a short time. Here we only ever connect via glass screens. Here we start as strangers and just slowly type our way into familiarity. Some reveal more than others, some more directly... just so much to consider. I'm just rambling!
But maybe just keep sharing what's important to you and what you want or need to. It's a process for all of us.