Spoiler
Very recently I've begun taking somewhat of a step back from many of the niche hobbies I'm a part of. In taking this step back though I've realized that over the course of being in these groups I've been poisoned by the attitudes and social ideas prevalent within them.

This has lead to increasing disenfranchisement, as the prevailing thing I've noticed is that a lot of people I know from them tend to build caricatures of the people they meet based on a small amount of information. For a few of my hobbies you have to create somewhat of a persona, and when your interaction with someone may be based just on that it usually just leads to trouble down the line. With this in mind I've started trying to go out and do things with my peers that don't involve our shared hobbies, but I've been somewhat rebuffed as doing things outside of those hobbies is apparently considered odd and awkward. I'm fast becoming of the opinion that I'd rather not partake in them unless I could just unwind and hang out with the people surrounding me, and I feel very strongly that it'd do a lot of them good to be in situations with people that don't involve those hobbies. Those I've gone out with have become much more in line with being friends than distant acquaintances, and we've learned a lot more about each other than we would have otherwise.

Aside from this, I'm glad stepping back has also caused me to come back and try to know some I once blew off a bit better. I've yet to run into someone who hasn't broken my ill conceived notions from the past on what they were really like.