maybe I can give you a hand in understanding the #Fediverse a bit better?
Think of it as a completely new school with many different classes and thousands (more than 14 mn, as of this weekend) of fellow students. You are new to this school. BUT in contrast to your old school, most people here are really friendly. So, if you ask for help, they will help you. As in RL, there are also some really dark alleys, but if you don't search for them, usually your instance's (aka...
...the server where your handle is being hosted) will take care of that.
This said, as in every new school: You need to put in some effort to meet new people. This is no corporate site like FB, TikTok, or Twitter, where an algorithm converts You into the product and force-feeds you content. Here, real people are the algorithm.
That said, here is some advice that can get your really started: