For all the dejected newbies! I have to say this every time this subject comes up.
When I first joined the TFP it took a couple of months of regularly contributing to threads here before people started acknowledging my existence. Don't take it personally! The lack of response is attributable to a variety of factors none of them being that you are an uninteresting person without any good ideas to share. It just means that people haven't warmed up to you, yet. And in a cold, static venue like a discussion forum, warmth is important - especially when the subject matter being discussed is often of an intimate and/or intensely personal nature. The easiest way to jump start interaction with folks here is to start threads - people will respond to you directly much more readily when you are asking them to give their point of view on a subject than they will when they are simply reading your opinion on an already existing thread. I realize this is difficult for some people who are on the shy side when it comes to meeting new people (like me) and for us it means you have to be patient and not let the value of your contributions be decided by responses from other people. Confidence in your ideas, I guess, is a key factor to 'making it' here at TFP.
But really, now that I think about it, it's not just the TFP. I joined a site for baby boomers a couple of months ago (that's 'old folks' to some of you people
), and it took a good bit of time for people to warm up to me there, too. In fact, even though I have befriended a few people there, I still don't feel like I 'belong.' My posts are regularly ignored, but it doesn't keep me from contributing when I feel I have something to say.
Just don't give up so quickly.