It is difficult to put this in a way without becoming defensive, because what you say is in a heavy opposition to my opinion. So.. I'll list out some of my experiences in hopes it brings some perspective.
This turned into quite a rant on the subject, so thank you if you decided to read the whole thing.
I grew up in a place that I had few opportunities to make friends. It was farmland, though not too far out from a more populated area that could be referred to as a town. I remember there being one other child my age being within walking distance, and it was still a far ways away. He was kind of a jerk sometimes, and I never talk to him anymore. This kinda sucked, as you may imagine. There were kids at day care, but I remember few times that I ever got to go visit them because of the distance and the need to schedule things. So, I had to make do playing on my own. I ran around outside, poked at bugs, played in the dirt like any other small child might. I remember just how boring it so often was, like the entire world stood still around me.
Daycare, and later on school was amazing for me because I was finally able to really start finding people who I could take common interests with, but even then it was hard. There's only so many people around to try and be friends with, and from my experiences as a 22 year old human being, I can tell you now that not everybody wants to be your friend, much less your best friend. There's nothing wrong with this, either. People sometimes just are not compatible. Forcing things doesn't really work out, and causes stress, again in my experience.
Fast forward to moving day, where we moved to somewhere more populated. My dad followed his work, so we ended up living on a large property in a very high-end area, with lots of iron gates and mansions, and black SUVs driving around. I managed to find more friends due to a more populated and diverse school, and fell in with a group of people that were sometimes fun to be around. I ended up not liking many of them, and only had a select few, very dear friends for a long time. This lasted all the way through elementary school, and somewhat into middle school and high school.
By the time middle school came around, however, I found myself in a lot of turmoil. I would refuse to do homework, get terrible grades and nearly failing years of school, occasionally get in yelling matches with my parents, and generally feeling more and more miserable. One day I snapped in front of the class, breaking down in tears as I tried to read out a book report that I half did the night before due to my parents forcing me through it. I was sent to the school counselor's office to try and talk it out. I told them, lying, that a friend of mine had died, and that's why I felt miserable. I had no idea why I felt the way I did, but it came on strong and it was unbearable at times. The only thing I could imagine making someone feel so awful is because of someone close to you being torn away. This triggered much more attention into figuring out what was wrong with me, especially once the school figured out that it wasn't true.
On to high school, I was regularly attending therapy sessions in attempts to figure out what was wrong exactly. I talked it out a lot, and to be honest, I don't remember a lot of it. I would often take time to show my interests to this person who seemed interested in talking to me, though I always got the feeling it was a sidetrack. I knew it felt very pleasant to get that stuff out though, my interests, thoughts, or whatever. Like a bit of pressure off my back.
Around the same time, we had a high-speed connection installed in the house, due to the internet becoming more important to people's daily lives. I took an interest into video games and the internet for a long time, ever since I was in elementary school, but never before was I really able to make anything of it myself aside from a Gameboy. We jumped straight from dial-up to fiber, which was quite a startling change. This left the internet open for me to explore.
I found multiplayer games like FlyFF and Battlefield 2142, and eventually Team Fortress 2. TF2 was unique, in that one friend from high school played it and wanted me to play it too. The servers he frequented were ones where people spoke a lot, making jokes and generally having fun. I only had limited experience with that sort of stuff, but eventually I wanted to have a voice of my own too. I started talking, and talking some more. I played a lot of TF2, and ended up making a lot of friends. Sometimes servers would lose popularity, so I'd go search for another one. I ended up in one particularly funnily-named server. I remember joining because of how odd the name was, compared to everything else on the list. I was greeted with a cacophony of music being played over people's mics, people generally screwing around, and all sorts of stuff. Even some people playing really well, which made me want to play against them to try and get better.
This lead to finding so many different friends as I stuck around, many of which I still speak of today. Some became close friends. We would talk about stuff other than the game sometimes, and with a select few, even very personal things. I finally had ears to put my thoughts to that weren't just paid professionals. I played with some of these friends outside of these games too, and they became very close to me. One friend, was able to show me that a friend can be caring, while also joking around at the same time. Another, showed me that it was okay to be who you wanted to be, and to present yourself with genuine thoughts and actions.
I was lead to other friends on another chat website, as well. This place... Put simply, was a cesspool. There were many people who only wanted cyber sex there. I don't feel the need to go into explicit detail, but in my time there, I was able to discover a lot about myself, as well. I found that my gender was not something so set in stone, and that it was okay to act as I felt like. I also met two people there, one in high school, and one more recently, just two years ago or so. They have both taught me a lot about what a long term, true friendship means. How to work and talk out problems, instead of bottling them up. How to talk to someone with sincerity, but without anger or ill-will. How to feel at home in my own body, and at peace with my identity.
These things... May have taken me a lifetime to learn otherwise. I have never felt more at peace with life. I go to class, and get good grades, because I want them and have support by people who care about me when I have trouble. I have a job, because those that believed in me encouraged me to do my best. Technology has become an amazing way to find others who fit for you. They are no replacement for in-person interaction, but to say that friends like those were a pointless distraction brings me to write as much as I have here. I will not say I am angry, but I wish to speak my mind because of how important of a topic this is to me.
So... There you have it. That ended up being much longer than I thought it would be. If anyone took the time to read this in its entirety, thank you once again.