The article says people underestimate how warm and friendly others are and to join communities. At this point it’s my life, I expect about a third of the people I meet to be complete pieces of shit with an additional third to be people I’m just not interested in being social with. Being part of a community does not change those odds. I’ve been part of one with in person interaction for 20+ years and there are people with repugnant ideas (transphobia, antimask, etc) I have to tolerate to participate. There’s a reason we have the phrase “missing stair”. I started a whisper network in a different community I’m in because nobody, including the victim, is willing to make waves by ejecting a guy that sexually assaulted a member of the community, even people that claim to be feminists. Separating wheat from chaff is exhausting and I wish I knew how to tip the odds into the task being actually rewarding. Even if you find people that you jive with, you have to constantly be working to replace the people that disappear for whatever reason, moving, children, job schedule, divorces, and plain old being dead. I’ve not given up on people or being social, it’s just takes so much effort that I really get people checking out of it.