You tried to friend me and I rejected the request. Maybe an explanation would be helpful?
We'd never interacted on the boards, and I didn't remember seeing anything you'd written, so I went to see what kind of things you'd posted. Most posts were just a few words, without much for me to get a sense about you. Like maybe you'd say "Hi [name]" in someone's introduction thread, and that's it. In all honesty, I wasn't sure if you were for real or just spam.
At any rate, I want to have an idea of whether I'll get along with a person before I friend them.
So I think Derek's idea of introducing yourself is a good one. Either that, or read posts for a while to get a sense of the place, then start joining in conversations so that people start to learn who you are that way.
Maybe say why you're here. Are you Deaf or HH? Or a hearing person who's trying to learn ASL? If you're looking for someone to practice with, maybe try to give a sense of where you're at in your signing? If you're just looking to make friends, maybe just give a sense of yourself, like tell about some experience you had that relates to the kinds of things that people talk about here, or talk about your background. (Again, starting out, probably your background as it relates to things that brought you to AllDeaf? Just a thought.)
Anyway, after you do some of this, people can decide if they feel like the person you present is a good match for them, if they want to be friends or whatever.
I mean, you can pick people out that you think you'd like to be friends with and approach them, but you should probably tell them why you picked them: "I really liked your post about ----- because you said ----- and that that makes sense to me because -----." If you just write people cold with no detail, you're not giving them anything to respond to, not giving them a way to know if they're interested in getting to know you.
Good luck:0
(and welcome to AllDeaf.)