This forum taught me one valuable lesson: that lonely people do not form common cause on the issue of loneliness. In my experience it's extremely rare for anyone to find their new best friend on here, let alone something like a partner in life. The Networking subforum comes across largely as a wasteland because most requests for contact outside public messages on this forum go ignored, and the few separate private conversations that start tend to peter out. I actually feel sorry for the many newcomers who join this forum in order to stop being lonely, because real life just doesn't work that way. In the end most of us on this forum are just clusters of pixels to each other and we all remain in our own solitudes. So that's one valuable lesson I've learned from being on here.
Another valuable lesson is that loneliness does not discriminate. Before I came here, I expected lonely people all to be socioeconomically marginalized, but the membership here also includes some people who come across as establishment insiders with piles of money and perspectives that sound like press releases and TV commercials, yet they're lonely too or they wouldn't be here.
The third valuable lesson I learned is that someone in a position of power doesn't have to be nice in order to be competent. The staff here come across as abrasive and unpleasant, even when responding to my requests for advice, but I have no complaints about the technical side of how they manage the forum, beyond a limited amount of favoritism toward some members.
The fourth valuable lesson is that there are many different varieties of loneliness, and I don't share them all, nor does everyone else share all of mine. I have trouble relating to young men who pine for their first girlfriend, but I can understand people who have to move a piano and have absolutely no one to help them lift the weight. Both are types of loneliness and both are equally valid.