What is Reddit?

I’m borrowing that.

Even lemmy, which is small in comparison has enough people that I barely even think about specific users. Let alone speak with them on a personal level.

I have a different experience but I’m on a very smaller instance than .world. Your instance is big, generalist but their is lots of them that are location- or topic-oriented. Such instances are not only smaller with a more personnalised local thread but the people on it share already identified common points with you.