Most of my neofriends are frozen, but I used to have a lot of them; most of them from old guilds; I try to avoid NeoBoards at all, so I totally understand you when you say that Neopets can get pretty lonely
As far as RL friends that play neopets... meh, they left the site about 10+ years, but I keep talking to them (we're not too close either, but we are still some-sort-of-friends) and that's nice because they know how neopets works and I can brag about my late late (REALLY late) achievements and they understand me :')
It was WAY funnier when they played too, because we made reunions and we played KQ and all that stuff... I really miss that. It was nice to fufill goals as a pack
As I do miss helping others to reach their goals I try to sociallyze in the site giving random gifts to strangers who have a nice Gallery or things like that, and have become neomail-pals with a few of them over the years.