I think I discovered something I don't do very well with acquaintances/weak friends--especially if it's a close friend of someone that I'm close with (e.g. my friend's partner): I assume we're getting along well enough to tease them or share my opinions quite directly (like my opinions about animal agriculture, for example).

Close friends can tease each other, and when they do, it's even a sign of their closeness and level of trust. As it turns out, this isn't transitive as early on as I (apparently) felt it was, at least based on a couple experiences. Vouching for someone is a thing, but mostly in certain contexts and with certain relationships, and my matrix of those combos might be quite different than average.

Have others experienced this?

I can think of a few reasons this might be the case for me specifically, but then I also thought about the couple of examples I had in mind, and in both cases the friend-of-my-friend was someone outside of my main community of rats/EAs, so maybe that's part of it, too. 🤷‍♀️

I'm currently unable to "like" posts here, and I asked ChatGPT about that. Here's what they said (which I'm posting, b/c maybe it'll help solve this problem!):

On Friendica, the ability to interact with posts, such as "liking" them, often depends on the settings of the specific instance you've joined, as well as the status of your account. Here are a few possible reasons you might not be able to "like" posts:

New Account Restrictions: Some Friendica instances restrict the actions new users can take until they’ve been active for a certain amount of time or made a certain number of posts. This is done to prevent spam and ensure the user is genuinely engaging with the platform.

Instance Settings: The administrator of your Friendica instance might have configured the platform to limit certain interactions. For example, some instances might disable "liking" or other social actions by default for all users or just for new users.

Network Settings: Friendica allows users to connect with other social networks (like Diaspora, Mastodon, etc.). If you’re trying to "like" a post from another network, there might be compatibility issues or restrictions depending on how the networks are interconnected.

User Permissions: Your account might have limited permissions. Check your account settings or contact the administrator of the instance to confirm your permissions.

To resolve the issue, you can try the following:

Check your account status: Make sure your account is fully activated and that there are no restrictions on it.
Review instance policies: Look for any information or guidelines on your instance’s homepage or help sections that might explain the restrictions.
Contact support: Reach out to the instance's admin for clarification on why you can't "like" posts and what you need to do to gain that access.
If none of these suggestions work, let me know, and we can try to troubleshoot further.