friendship between introverts benefits from quarterly check-ins at most. given both our histories of depression, "you alive or nah?" is only for the pre new year check-in.
debain, with xfce if i need a desktop. mostly because i started on xubuntu. started learning sysadmin stuff when all i could afford was a potato with salvaged computer components shoved in it. xfce considered that excessively over powered. ended up loving the way i set up my xfce env, and probably wont change it much over the next 20yrs because theres no need. so when cononical got extra gross it was easy to just move to debian and carry on with my life.
came here to suggest journaling as well. and if you've already had a good experiance with it, all the better. during my divorce, the only other person i felt connected with offered to "help fix me" if i'd just give them a pass on all my established boundries. i declined and we parted ways. filled at least two books that year but it gave me a place to talk outside my head. it was enough to get me to each next day. that gave me time to let connections with other people develop on terms i was comfortable with.