“Find people with similar interests”

A good idea in theory but it doesn’t seem to be working for me. For example, I really like cars. I can like and respect trucks, vans, sedans, sports cars, super cars, you name it. But I RARELY get along with other enthusiasts because so many of them have this narrow tunnel vision that one car is the best and everything else is just shit. They claim to be enthusiasts but then trash talk someone else’s car. I can’t stand it.

I was recently invited to this small local discord chat for car enthusiasts. I was expecting to meet some cool people, you know since it was local and kind of a small group. I tried talking in there but I was ignored every time I tried to jump into the conversation. I posted a picture of the Infiniti that I used to drive, thinking maybe that would get me more “in” the group, and some guy responded with “yawn”. I thought that was kind of rude, and I said “really?” and he basically started trash talking my car and telling me about how a Camaro is better. I tried to ignore his aggressiveness and plainly stated “I like ZL1 Camaros, not crazy about the V6 ones”. He took extreme offense to that and went off the rails. Admittedly I kind of dished it back and ended up telling him “there’s no reason to be a dick, I only stated an opinion”. And then he was like “you’re the one talking shit, you’re the one being a dick” when he basically started the whole thing by trash talking my car right off the bat. I think there’s a difference between just stating an opinion or preference you have, and making rude, pointless, off the cuff comments like “yawn” and “your Infiniti is shit, try and gap me in my Camaro”. And obviously if someone is going to be an asshole and try to start shit, well good news, I can be a fucking asshole right back.

I swear I meet so many people in the car community who are like this. They claim to be these diehard enthusiasts but they can’t even have an ounce of respect for any other car that isn’t associated with their favorite brand or their favorite model. They argue and talk shit about you just because you have a car that they don’t like. I don’t get it. It would be nice to meet people with similar interest but I find the car community to be so toxic most of the time.