A handful of good friends that you enjoy being with is always better than a plethora of jerks and bullies. I only try interacting with people I consider to be worth the effort, and in my case those people are few and far between. I learned early on that I was never going to be the kind of person that everybody likes, and I've more recently learned to just not care what the others think.

There'll always be people that are going to pick on you for something, and if you try to placate them, they'll merely find something else to pick at. Then there's a lot of people that expect you to go with the crowd, and they might look down on you if you don't. Then there's the people that like you for who you are, and are willing to look past the nuances and quirks to see the person underneath. Those are the people worth reaching out to, and every one of them will more than make up for all the rest.

That's my outlook, at least, and it's served me pretty well overall. At least, I have as much fun humorously discussing the anatomy of a cat's reproductive organs while eating lunch as the buffoons at the next table over who insist on throwing food and yelling obscenities. As I said, most people aren't worth it, but I've found my eye of the hurricane