My advice is this - if you can, get yourself positioned, educationally or whatever is necessary, to work alone. Even if it's rote and boring. Save your energy for developing your personal and more fulfilling interests and pursue them at your own level of comfort. Being among people physically is highly over-rated as a method of interacting, IMO. If you are happier spending your time alone, you do not owe anyone an explanation for it. I, unfortunately, made poor choices when younger that resulted in a survival imperative and work-life that has been primarily non-stop hell. Not blaming anyone, it's just the way it has been. I had responsibilities ( kids mainly) that rendered me incapable of effectively redirecting that trajectory. They have been the only joy in my life, so I am not complaining about that. However, if you are young and don't have that type of requirement to satisfy, do what you can to carve out the happiest future that you can. Disregard, whenever possible, the noise that tells you that you HAVE TO be this way and not that, you should and must work and live and do that which the majority of society regards as resembling "success". Fuck them if your shirt is buttoned wrong or you pause in the maelstrom to stare off into space. They can eat shit if you giggle at a kid tripping on the sidewalk. So what if you forgot to say GOOD MORNING when just seeing the person expecting it has already ruined your day just by being there. And get around people who can let you laugh at yourself without it being confirmational evidence that you are more fucked up than they are.

Thanks for your post and sorry for all my diatribes. It has struck a nerve. The one that hurts when I allow one of the few things - like seeing the world through often child-like eyes - that I have managed to love myself for to be the cause of so much pain. It's fine. Fuck them.