Feeling utterly lost and confused as a new player

As the title says - this isn't a gameplay issue at all; for that aspect, the baystation wiki is quite exhaustive (apart from a few topics, but you take what you get 9_9) But no, this issue is more of a roleplaying nature.

I haven't been here for long, but most of you probably at least vaguely know me, or have seen me in OOC by now. For me, it's been two weeks of fun, sleepless nights, spending most of my free time roleplaying on this server, and honestly, it's been a thrilling experience. However, there's something which has been bothering me as of late - and is bugging me more and more as I begin to account more for my surroundings.

I feel really left out. Now, I understand the dynamics on a server such as this are complex, and (I'm guessing) some people have frequent RP partners (by that, I mean person-to-person, not char-to-char), and most characters are part of a complex mesh of interpersonal relationship. But even after playing regularly for a little while now, I still feel no different from a random joining the server for the first time. I have a better understanding of how the roles I've learned work, and I'm generally not as lost when I have to RP out a certain situation, but I simply feel... like all I really do is sit around, do my job, and act as an unseen extra in the lives of other characters.

The tip that might immediately come in response to this, obviously, is "if you can't find any good RP, then start your own!". This is obviously not always effective, however. Most of Aurora's characters are already preoccupied with their own RP routines; I'm often gonna try to engage in RP with someone only to awkwardly find out that they were in fact trying to interact with another character, and while their players are nice enough to dedicate me some of their time, I essentially feel as if I'm intruding in someone else's game, and these kind of interactions never end up going anywhere.

One of the reasons why I think it's so hard to fit in is because everyone already seems to have their own thing going on. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem; in any other community, you'd simply hang back and get a sense of things, until you reach a point where you feel like you know enough to chime in conversations. But there's no such point when roleplaying - because most of SS13 is dictacted by what happens IC, and not OOC, it's nigh impossible to simply "insert" yourself in any group at a given point, and basically act like you own the place. And - wait, I'm not done - I think that's perfectly okay. It wouldn't make sense in any other community, so why would it make sense now? People are entitled to do whatever they want. And if you have a closed off, tightly knit RP group which fuctions well as a (mostly) autonomous unit, then it'd be ridiculous to ask you to accommodate new players - that's simply not your job!

Here's where my problem is, though. If not through these people, then how? This has to be a problem that most of you encounter regularly, and if not, have encountered at some point, when you were new players. But even if you're well-acquainted with everyone OOC (which facilitates RP somewhat in my experience), unless you introduce every new character as some "long-lost relative of X" or something similar, then there's going to be a point at which you'll be playing the new guy or gal, that nobody really knows and nobody really wants to talk to, because there's already so much stuff going on and oh-my-god-the syndicate is nuking the base in retaliation to something a character did twenty rounds ago.

So I'm simply asking you guys, how do you do it? I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for. Tbh, not only do I feel bad whenever I end up intruding into somebody's RP by walking into a seemingly deserted room only to find a group of library-conspiring heads simply because I'm trying to find something to do, but even simply by making this thread, I kind of feel like the new kid in kindergarten who's basically coming up to people during recess and asking them if they want to be their friend.

I'm not looking for a pat on the back. I'm not looking for encouragement (well, maybe some?) But I guess I simply wish I could get a better sense of how things are done here, because honestly, the thought of being never able to fit in gets pretty jarring at times.