Is that essentially clicking the "follow" button?

to make it short: yes. type:contact is used for following and blocking. I think patchbay only shows type:post in the feed and annotates votes/digs on them. ( patchbay and -foo have a nerdier approach towards messages. They show all the messages but it can feel spammy at times since you see all the dig/follow/subscribe sprees that people go through. )

do you mean the real life setting of not being in the same room, or on at the same time?

yup, that is exactly what I meant and you are correct on all counts. You could add your own public key to your generated personal invite, which is also much safer because e2e encryption is nothing without some proper key verification but it's also just a matter of time before there are more than one zach here.. ;)

buuut if I'd have to run an errand suddenly and couldn't let the new person in for a few hours that would be a pretty bad onboarding experience in my book but it is perfect for the sync setting and it is what we should strive for imho since it also maps much better onto the personal friend-of-a-friend thing.