It must be you. Gnutella is alive, well and growing in a healthy manner; that doesn't mean the network and software are without problems, however.
I've installed most of the active Gnutella clients and a few of the inactive ones like Newtella and Furi. I've encountered delays in connection time, but, within a reasonable period of time, I've always been able to establish a connection and share files using all of them.
I'm riding an antique Pentium 166 (no MMX) with only 32 Mb RAM; sometimes execution is painful, but a DSL connection has given my ugly beige monster an extension to its useful life.
I would suggest disabling your firewall and any ad blocking software during Gnutella sessions.