I'm glad that women are mostly fine towards you - I hate it so much when we do that to each other, as if the general state of affairs isn't toxic enough! I'm in my mid thirties now and do my best to be the older coworker I would have needed towards the twenty-something young professionals at the job, especially the ones who dare to show their interests and speak up.

I have the impression that the girls of the younger generations are kinder and more supportive towards each other, and I'm really happy about it. I'm aware that especially the petite young women go through a lot of shit, and throw in my literal Gamer Momma weight whenever they want it.

For me personally, I have been bullied by girls through my teenage years, and by older women at work for most of my career. Comically over the top villainous Regina-George-Style, including going through my desk during the break, yelling at me for 20 minutes straight for scheduling a meeting in their lunch time once, trying to get into my computer, trying to get me fired for being sick, very demeaning comments about my eating habits, and complete ridiculing of all my hobbies and interests. Since I don't have the part where guys are angry about rejection, I had/have an easier time breathing around them.

But in general, I have the impression that "public display of nerddom" is coming to an end now. We had our peak of happily connecting to strangers over their shirt, now every fandom seems super toxic even at the surface level and a lot of people don't want to be associated with it any more. I don't even want to look at the Rings of Power discussions online. It's a medicore show, okay, but that's no reason to unleash that amount of hate towards one another. Maybe everything will calm down once us nerds have been shoved back into the shameful-interests-corner where we were in my youth. That's a bit of a pathetic hope but at least it might be something.