In really life, i wouldnt say i'm hard to get along with, though i'm totally not blessed with many friends, but on EC its hard to make friends it seems since regular members can't PM it's hard to actually get to know someone at all, just from a couple opinions they post on a couple forums.
What I do to make friends and get to know people was this: I just read around threads that are interesting to me, finding a post that a member wrote and if they sounded interesting, or had an unusual picture or whatever, I go to their profile, read up any bio that they've written and strike up a conversation on their walls. I still do this as a Full Member and Mod. It's a nice bonus if the chat room's active to meet people in real-time but other than that, it's still the same process of initially getting to know people. I've never really found that any members on here that don't wish to talk; everyone's friendly and feels the same way as you, they just want to chat and make friends, but it takes one person to initiate that contact
it's always been hard for me to just strike up a random conversation. Dont get me wrong, i love voicing my opinion, i just cant start it of some reason it seems.
I never found myself too comfortable with EC myself, to tell you frankly. But I try my best to stay enjoyable and in touch with others even if I still don't get that much attention. ^_^
It takes a while. Just keep posting, maybe once in a while go to somebody's profile and comment on something they said in a thread, or talk about a common interest they have labeled on their profile. And I don't know about anybody else, but I rarely use the PM service.
I prefer to lurk a bit and just answer threads when I feel I have something to add to help the OP or further a discussion. I've never really seen forums as a place to make friends, though there have been exceptions in the past.
Just keep reading topics and replying to posts. Once you've done enough of this you can apply to be a full member and then make PMs if you want, or you'll have made enough of a mark on these forums that people will recognise you, can respond to things that you have said in your posts and friendships can start from there. I hope that helps. Don't really know why I'm offering advice - 1. I don't post often, I've been around for a few years and do read a lot of the threads but don't often say things because usually someone has said it before, 2. I appreciate others form friendships through these boards but thats not happened to me and it doesn't bother me, i'm just here to give advice where I can and 3. I'm not very good at making friends in real life, far too shy for that.
