I, personally, grew up with a giant lack of self-confidence. After I turned 25, along with quarantine to truly understand myself, I feel I have gained more confidence/self-worth.
My field is technology, but most of all my friends are not “engineers” and I have felt I have been missing out on some key bonds that are preventing me from sharing my knowledge to grow with them in a mutually beneficial way. I felt most of my friends were of the business kind that “always had an idea” and had a pocket engineer to talk to.
But, recently the past 2 years I have been more “mature” saying no to things or starting to give low-level, instead of high-level, overviews about certain topics. I felt it was in-fact hurting my career, to not talk in-depth so I began to join discords and build up my social vernacular observing/conversing with engineers online. But, whenever an in-real life discussion would start with a topic that I had researched, I would always make sure to “correct it” in case fake observations are brought up and/or decisions were made based on them.
Lately, though I have felt I have lost bonds with almost all of my in real life friends. And I can’t tell if, I am the *sshole, or if I have just “grown?”. I have felt that I was always aware of how I shared my “side of the story” and/or reasoning behind my decisions respectfully. But, I just can’t get it out of my head that I am in the wrong in some way.
Friends grow apart, it happens. Making friends gets more and more difficult.
You can decide how much effort you want to maintain relationships, and how much you invest in new ones.
It looks like you started a journey of self improvement this process can last a lifetime. At some point I discovered that people are really interesting and diverse, especially as they grow older
I think there is a celebrity book “How to talk to anyone” that would be helpful. TL;DR - interview people
Yeah, it truly feels a new chapter has started in my life. And I really like it, because it’s for the first time I am feeling that I am shaping my personality on my own, while taking in advice from others/literature and not just wearing masks constantly (But, hard to tell if I am going about it correctly). I will check that book out!