Vaz

Do what you want, be proactive, and eventually you'll find people you mesh with. Search for FCs, linkshells, and Discords that match your preferences. When you find someone whose RP (or whose OOC opinions on RP) are to your liking, chat with them and get their recommendations of other people/groups you might enjoy.

I don't see a problem with outleveling content. That's not to say there isn't one; maybe there are factors I, as a newish player, am unaware of. The side quests provide so many lore tidbits that I don't think a roleplayer can afford to skip. Wading through every form of content and dialogue there is in-game is one of the few ways that exist to learn about how things are on Hydaelyn. Other ways include reading the two Encyclopedia Eorzea volumes cover to cover and browsing Sounsyy's lore index.

The only kind of game where gear repairing makes sense is one that's trying to encourage codependence among players, i.e. by making repair something only players with a certain job at a certain level can do, with no NPC alternative. In FFXIV and most other games, it has no point. I don't mind doing it, but I don't like that it's only there as a mindless homage to earlier games that included as many annoying "features" as possible just for the sake of "difficulty."

Well that was about ten years ago now, so my main character was a preteen. He was all the way over in the Azim Steppe. I gather the Calamity didn't have much effect outside of Eorzea. Maybe my character's tribe saw Dalamud break apart, or maybe they couldn't see it from their side of the world; in any case, all my character would've known at the time was that there was one less moon in the sky after that.