Yes there are many dry spells but eventually I find a group, and in the meantime I can level off of explore/observe/commerce EXP and killing the odd mob here and there. It seems like when I try to focus on getting as many levels as fast as possible that's when I died to mobs repeatedly and often when i'm less than 1k tnl, so I don't stress it like I used to and it seems to work out for me. It's that awful law of the universe that if you really want something bad enough, everything will go horribly wrong in the attempt at achieving whatever it is you want. But if you don't give a shit, you win the lottery. It's like when I have a minotaur role idea, I'm guaranteed to never get a mino slot. But when I'm rolling up some other char that I have put tons of thought into the role, there's a mino slot open.

When I want a group and can't find one, I'll spam skills/spells a little or get some gold, and eventually someone asks me to group. That's my trick and it works pretty damn well. I wish it worked for everyone.