I also had the same problem as you OP. My story may sound strange, but I believe it might help some people here to understand. I was content with being alone my whole life, but one day I got depressed hard because I hadn't a single friend to share my experiences with, I was bad at socializing and I really wanted someone I could have comfy talks with. So, I thought about on how to approach this. I've attached pictures of the threads, in case they get deleted, I've cropped the Wizchan one because it's too long.
OK, let me tell you first about how I've started. I think the first attempt I've made was a Tox thread on Lainchan (lainchan.org/Ω/res/4082.html). I originally didn't state that I've searched for friends, I've just made a nice Tox thread with my Tox ID and waited and many people contacted me. But, I think most were just too different from me, some were normal and it was OK, but I also fucked one up because I was bad at socializing and very immature, I'm still sad about it. Then I've learned that people might not feel the same way about friendships as I do, so I've made a thread (lainchan.org/hum/res/2762.html) that described what I wanted at the time, many people contacted me again. One person was particularly interesting, he was quite unique and I thought at the time that he would be the perfect friend I've waited for, but with time he wanted to talk less, I mean he had his own tulpa, so he was quite busy talking and doing things with her (I just wanted to mention it, the point isn't here if tulpas are hallucinations or not, if the other person is happy why does it matter). One day the friendship broke because I did something stupid, well I try to be honest, so one day he wrote a program and I've told him that it was badly written because of reasons I've explained to him, sadly he got angry at me and stopped talking to me. I always preferred honest people over people that just try to be nice, it's a lot better to say "I think that part is shit because of reasons" than to say nothing at all, well it depends on the situation, but honesty is much better in a friendship than just trying to be nice.
Anyways, I've made a thread a Wizchan after that, again many people contacted me. Now I think that was the point I've found people which I still talk to this day (two people). They're vastly different in personality, so why was this thread more successful than the other one you might think. I think it might be because I had a vastly different mindset how to approach this, it was differently written than the other one and some people got also interested, well I fucked one part up again, because I wanted people who are also interested in free software, it was really dumb of me and I still feel bad about it, but these two people I'd say have both a nice personality, they couldn't be different, well they tell me often that I'm a normie and it might be true, but still I'm nice to them even if they're robots (as they call themselves) that. One factor I didn't mention in the Wizchan thread was that people were much older on the imageboard than on Lainchan, so I got people with different personalities. Still, I wasn't quite satisfied about them, well I talked with both of them for 3 months then I've learned that they were a bit different in what they think what a friendship should be, still I really value them and talk with them whenever they're online.
After that I've made again a thread this time on 8/hikki (8ch.net/hikki/res/4347.html) and I honestly didn't expect much from it, it was just that I one day got quite depressed, so I've just made a thread and talked about it, again my intention was too maybe feel someone which was like me, well I almost forgotten about the thread and after a while I've made again a post, too my astonishment I've found a person that was really like me, he's really similar like me and his post didn't sound that similar, but I just took every chance I got to find real friends, and talked with him and I think it developed from there, I often wonder how similar we are.
Well, I hope my post might help someone to understand that it might be a huge effort to find real friends. Please don't get discouraged, you might find someone when you search long enough, it's really the most important point. Many people would give up after 10-15 attempts, but please do it until you find someone, there might be still nice and interesting people out there. Even on Zig Forums which the quality has suffered drastically you still can find some posters to know what they're talking about.
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