Yes, I think you are spot-on there. It's hard though. In my country too, there are firstly language and cultural barriers to cross too before even getting into the same interests category. We have a very diverse country of people. And, then there is also just not the same amount of awareness here as you would have in the rest of the world. People here don't know about different personalities and why people do what they do, most don't even know what autism is. So, it becomes really easy to say "Oh that guy's just full of BS, avoid him."

A thing I often hear people say in my country is "That person has issues." Nobody ever elaborates on their assessment/judgement and nobody bothers to find out what and why.