idk if this works for everyone, but one of the things that's made mastodon work well for me recently is that I replaced my home feed with an always shifting list of people whose posts I've liked recently, or who I've been talking to, or just people whose voices I'd like to hear more clearly

(tbc, it's not really about who I like or feel close to or don't...)

maybe bc introversion, I find that this works far better for me than trying to keep up with everybody all the time