OK this isn’t a cry for attention. I have a perfectly healthy social life.
It does seem a little strange to me that in nine years I haven’t befriended at least ONE of you guys.
It seems like I read all the time about other Dopers who have a "bond’ or some type of (internet) friendship that goes beyond the norm.
Anyway, I hope you guys get what I’m trying to say as I’m having a hard time articulating what I’m trying to say.
Anybody else in the same boat as me?
Yes.
Now get to work rowing, will ya? 
Not strange.
Or at least, I’m not sure I’d call any Dopers friends and expect them to reciprocate. There are certainly people I miss when they don’t post or whom I feel attached to when they provide updates on their lives, and others for whom my reaction is “so? who cares if you had a baby, got married, separated, were diagnosed with cancer?”
On the other hand, I don’t neccessarily frequent a small segment of threads with a high component of repeat posters, and I think that kind of thing is where deeper relationships bloom.
Or maybe I’m wrong and I’m strange too.
This isn’t strange.
I’ve been reading about 5 years, a member say 2 years, and not posting much at all until lately. There are folks I love to read but, to be honest, I don’t see becoming friends with any of them. And I would attend a Dopefest if one was located at a reasonable distance but I would be surprised to really get a personal relationship or friendship from that.
The problem isn’t them – it’s just how I’m wired. I don’t make friends via the computer or electronic-based contact. I can like those people and enjoy being around them but it just doesn’t turn into a bond or friendship as most folks define it. I bonded with a couple people over Ecunet - to the point of going several states to attend the funeral of one person - but the situation was very different from here; there we actually met at/for committees and at Assemblies unrelated to Ecunet. So the bond was more from regular life with Ecunet just being another communication tool we used.
<<It seems like I read all the time about other Dopers who have a "bond’ or some type of (internet) friendship that goes beyond the norm>>
I am not saying its the case here (I haven’t really kept notes to have a firm judgment) but I know from some other message board systems, once two or more people do bond, their post count shoots dramatically. They look for each other and seek them out; sometimes using posts as almost a public form of e-mail. In other words (and now its my turn to put things badly) you may be reading about them all the time because their post counts are up and their relationships different enough to get attention and additional comment.
Reading for 5 years, posting for 2 or 3.
I got a ‘friend request’ from a poster who had never actually posted the other day. I assume it was some sort of Spambot thing, unless there is really a poster named ‘Fartlighter’ whom I’ve been ignoring.
I have a distant relative who posts on this board - we share a mother and a father - and he’s pretty much the only person who would fall into the ‘friend’ catagory for me. I would also go to a dopefest if it were nearby, but I’d be one of the obscure ones, where people would say ‘Oh, right, I think I might have read a post of yours’.
That said, I do not the twists and turns in the lives of the prolific posters, such as Skald, and wish them well, and have some saddness for them when things, don’t, and I am more aware of the people who weigh in on issues of interest to me (Science, Canada, Buddhism)
I suspect that unless you have an IT job or a faculty job, or are a recluse, you’ll never post enough to be heard above the din. I suspect dopers with a bond are dopers who post a lot, read a lot, and have been here forever, or are friends IRL and both start posting.
That said, look for the friend requests to start piling up, dude.
You can always post on user names and see how many friends they each have. You do want to know don’t you? You can even see who they are. You needn’t bother with mine as I don’t use it.
Wait, you mean he’s not my friend? 
I thought we had something special.
I met one of my best friends here, but she’s the exception and not the rule. As much a net-dweeb as I am, this is still just a message board to me, and I think that’s pretty typical of the board as a whole.
I’ve been posting here for 4 years. There are a few posters with whom I share an interest who have become friends. We were in the same threads a lot and at some point started emailing each other to discuss things that came up in a thread but which would have been hijacks if we had continued talking in the thread. One of these relationships has resulted in a couple of face to face meetings.
I don’t find it strange that posters here would not develop similar ties. For me, it happened by accident, it wasn’t something I sought. It could just as easily not have happened.
Finally a thread I can get behind.
Why does this feel like a meeting of the dipshits?
Count me in as having no friends, real nor imagined but no enemies that I’m aware of either.
Nine and half years of posting -mostly in CS and IMHO. And far fewer posts than those who’ve been around a quarter of the time I’ve spent. But hey, I like in here and hope to stick around a bit longer.
Don’t feel bad, SHAKES. I’ve been a member here for 10 years and don’t have any SMDB friends, though there were a couple I sort of kind of got to know a little bit back when we did the big IM name exchange.
I get a lot out of the SDMB anyways, so I don’t sweat it.
I’ve been here for, like, a week and I’ve had numerous marriage proposals and offers/requests of fellatio. You must be doing it wrong.
There are a couple of dopers I’ve met in person, but actually that was before I joined SDMB. I don’t live in the same city as any of them, and the last time I saw them was in 1990, I think.
I’ve only met one Doper in person. We had a date and we just didn’t hit it off. It actually turns out that he was a friend-of-a-friend, too.
I’ve tried to sort of befriend Dopers, whether it be via the vBulletin “friends” feature or just saying hey when they IM me outside the board. I’ve gotten pal-y with a couple of guys my age but I wouldn’t say any of us are close.
I have, within the last year, made two pretty good friends on here (good enough to Facebook friend!). Funny thing is that we really connected through work. As in, I needed to hire people and they needed work. Those are the only two I’ve really connected with, and only one of them do I really chit-chat with (when I’m not cracking the whip as her boss!)
I kind of get the feeling that for the most part, there isn’t a huge percentage of regular posters who are very close to any other regular posters. The interaction we like is the interaction we get right here - nothing wrong with that!
It’s the fact that checking friends does nothing except compile a tally for you to show off and if I remember may allow you to know if they are logged in. It’s a useless feature to me.
I’ve been posting since 1999. Everyone here pretty much hates me.
Not that I care.
In my four years posting here, I’ve met exactly one Doper in person. I don’t really have any “friend” here either, but there are people whose posts I look up to, and it’s been sort of a surprise to learn that some people have in fact noticed mine. But I’m not that much of a frequent poster, I’m not one of the “popular” ones, and I don’t post in the threads where people talk about what’s happening in their lives, nor go to Dopefests. I guess that explains why we aren’t on with the “social networking” aspect of the SDMB.
I laughed at this post at first. Then I remembered I’ve seen a few of those requests before and realized you might not be kidding. Then I laughed again because it’s still a funny post.
I’ve been on for…years and years. No friends in any sense of the word.
I can tell when certain posters have…“in groups.” I don’t belong to any clique or even have a smattering of dopers with whom I share even a mild camaraderie.
But it’s all good 
I love the dope and it totally satisfies the cravings I have that make me come here.
Oh, and I’m a total thread killer