Casually learning BSL

[Pandoren]

Hello all.

I've thought about learning BSL (for no particular reason) for a while. It's one of those things, like First Aid skills, that 'might come in handy'. A few months back, while looking at courses in the hope of expanding my career, I came across a discounted BSL course and decided to do it. 

I've only been proceeding casually, especially as I'm doing another language course that I'm further along in, but decided to revise today. When googling an unclear sign for confirmation, I discovered this site which had a different sign completely. After checking a few other signs I found a lot more variety than I'd anticipated. It makes sense to have some differences- if verbal language can vary enormously depending on the part of the UK you come from, understandably BSL could too... however I admit I've become disheartened by the apparent extent of this, since I'm not sure how much of what I'm learning is a variant (it is definitely a BSL course as opposed to ASL etc, and other signs are the same) and it seems like I could learn the entire course, meet someone else who has learned BSL from another source (such as here...) and struggle to hold a conversation. As far as I'm aware there is only one official BSL. I'm not really sure what to do now.