That's a valid point, for sure. I too have made a number of friends through others. Almost 2 years ago I moved from my home state of Michigan to North Carolina. I didn't know anybody here. I stayed with the same company I worked for in Michigan and through work, I was able to meet some people. At first, we had that one thing in common... work. Then, one of the guys and I hit it off and realized we had a lot of other things in common, family, love of sports, beer and music. Thus, what started around the topic of work and was, at first, just an acquaintanceship, turned in to a friendship. I've had a number of acquaintances here that have started out around the topics of "running", "entrepreneurship" etc that have become actual friends. Now that I have lived here a bit, these friends are directly introducing me to other people that they know I'll get along with.

So, my point isn't that your way of meeting people isn't valid, it is. I use it myself. My point is that meeting people through topics is often our only means by which to do so at first. New users will likely be more tag heavy than veteran users. My hope is that we will see an arc over the span of a users time here, bending towards the following of users. We shall see. As mk said, we are watching this closely.