Shit. I think I know why social networks (including Mastodon) don't foster personal connection: There isn't a shared activity to bond over. No one is doing anything together. It's just people thinking out loud.
Even the special interest instances on this network don't really facilitate that, because they are too meta and only talk about a specific interest without facilitating the shared participation in said activity.
That's what made my old site ArtGrounds work. You could draw there.