How do you find people in your city to chat with using yahoo messenger?

I'm having trouble finding people to talk to using yahoo messenger, I have joined chat rooms, and all i get are bots and chicks who want to cam. I would like to find sombody real to talk to in my city. I have seen people who have a full list of people they have on yahoo messenger, you know friends from the past and such. what am I doing wrong? I've never really used yahoo messenger, and I know there must be some trick to this.