Yeah, I remember rooting around with branle wondering if anyone would answer me. With a little persistence I stumbled across a few folks who said "hi" from time to time. Some were willing to help with my initial struggles with WebSockets and other junk. Bit by bit a few more people, like you, entered my sphere.
Then came the period where we all tracked the global feed and said "welcome" to any new person who showed up. Some of them stayed. One by one my little local sphere grew.
Then we hit the knee of the curve.
Now there are thousands in my local sphere and hundreds of thousands (at least) in the global feed that I have no hope of following.
>From: 0xtr at 04/15/23 08:41:02 on wss://atlas.nostr.land
>---------------
>The convo in my timeline a year ago was usually you, #[8], #[9], #[10] and a couple of others hacking on our own projects (i.e. posting “test” posts all the time). And some memes and bots. It’s wild how much more people are on here now and how insanely much better the clients have become.