alt Hacker NewsHow I do it:
My local IRL friends are some folks I met during my days as a BBS sysop ~35 years ago.
My far away IRL friends are folks online where we felt motivated to treat eachother as friends instead of dangerous randos.
(Risky? Perhaps. We're all simply too old to give a shit.)
That's still not answering my question. Where do you make those "far away IRL friends"? Most commercial platforms today discourage (because it is bad for engagement) users from building close ties with individual other users even if said users are willing to let their guard down. The user base of open and easily findable non-commercial platforms has collapsed. Your posts are dangling some kind of 2026 Shangri-La before HN readers, and you can understand my skepticism.