I am like you, also wanting a signal before interacting.

I think for me, a big reason is because I'm autistic and I won't be able to perceive any 'cues' from other people, so I default to assuming they don't want to talk unless they're extremely explicit about the opposite.

But I think a lot of people also look for a signal, they're just better able to read it from body language and whatnot?

That's adorable! Does anyone know what kind it is?

Your username makes me think you go around in elliptic orbits just to say NO at things due to your skepticism. :)

This year we made a jackdaw friend in our garden. We can feed it directly from the hand and it's comfortable around us.

Jackdaw in Swedish is Kaja (sounds kinda like "Kaia")

We named it Kajko (kaiko). I liked the name and now I'm using it.

It's weird but I'm the same way with purple. My favourite colour that I don't ever wear.

I'm not American so I grew up hearing about peanut butter from their media. I made up this amazing idea of it, which was completely shattered when I finally tasted it.

It's probably one of those acquired tastes like Australians with Vegemite (which I also tried according to recommendations but I probably just needed to go back in time and be born in Australia).

I still dream of tasting my imaginary peanut butter.

Same here. I've been commenting more, but it takes an unreasonable effort. Actually making a post seems really intimidating and it makes me exhausted to just think about it.

Thank you, "V&V" was completely undecipherable to me.

Agreed. I don't want content made for the sake of competing. I want people to post about the things they care about, and want to talk about.

These kind of reposts feel dead somehow and just clutter the feed for me.

Good job at identifying that you need rest. I historicallly have been so bad at that.

Please go away (gently) and don't think about us. Nothing that happens here is more important than your health.

No, that sounds like a great use of AI. I would be happy if a non-corporate option could be used for these kind of tasks for those that benefit from it.

For me though, I don't think it's about bad recommendations for books but the idea of seeking recommendations at all. I'm almost never in a "I want to read something but I don't know what" state. If I don't have a book in front of me or in my mental queue, I'm usually doing something else instead. My queue is almost never empty.

I don't follow strangers hoping for recommendations, I just follow someone that I feel an affinity for and sometimes that results in learning about a new book, seeking it and reading it.

The idea of receiving book recommendations feels overwhelming, especially from a system that would find a million interesting things, just for me. But I'm not opposed at all to such a tool existing!

Impressive! And yet the plant seems happy up there?

I may be strange on this, but I have never felt like I need automatic recommendations, and any I have gotten feel more like a nuisance.

I have my list of books on BookWyrm and sometimes I look at it and go like "oh I wonder what this author has been up to" and I look it up, or I participate on some online discussion about what people have read and if something sounds interesting I add it to my BookWyrm list.

I've also added a couple of books from people I follow there, who have interest in common but sometimes add this entirely unexpected book and I get to explore it.

I've been on BookWyrm for a bit and I quite like it. I've actually written my first reviews (something I never did on gr).