I can only tell you what I did, though I did not leave, I just stopped communicating. I looked and found that most of those friends had migrated to other related platforms. I signed up there and tried to support their posts.

I came to steemit without plans for making money or even, for making friends. That stuff just slowly happened. I came here because I had written a novel of about 20,000 pages and did not want to die, someone gets my computer and formats the hard drives, killing off a bunch of people I have grown to love. I had just read about the blockchain providing an extended life to whatever is posted there, so it seemed a good idea to upload it using steemit. Since then I have realised that archive. com is a better place, for it may exist longer in the blockchain, but it also gets hidden, since it is not easy to read old posts. Steemit is not created to provide even that temporary kind of extended life.

What is also important now is that I am still meeting some very nice people. I know, internet friends (says my cynical half)...and my answer is, so what. If they live more than a 100 km from my home, I am not likely to meet them, so I might as well accept them at face value. As you say, maybe something is being planned for me that I would never have dared plan for? Perhaps what I do here is being echoed across to other realities and something happens there?

In the last 10 days, my closest friend here decided to stop and withdrew...but, I have also met someone I knew of, who once we began to comment, found we have much in common and I think he is growing to be a friend. Since I aalso admire his talent, I hope so.

So, who knows what Tom would do? Perhaps what matters more is, what will you do? Do you need for others to give to you, or, is the need for you to give, greater?