I still feel I need to hide when I am interested in something. Am I not the only one?
Definitely not, and the solution is to stop hanging out with people who ridicule or mock you for your interests and hobbies, and find those who admire and/or encourage you instead.
You can’t just find different friends. You just meet people by chance, so you have to be loyal to people no matter how much of an asshole they are.
Nah this is completely wrong, move your body to somewhere else where there are different people. Interact with them. That’s it, you have a different social circle now. Find a new hobby or pick up an old one in a different place, decline to hang out with people who ridicule you and invite people who do not.
What if I told you you do not have to be loyal to people who don’t respect you?
Apart from what other people have pointed out- what if one of your friends does great harm to another of your friends? How do you stay loyal to both of them?
You should be loyal to people, they might also be afraid to show their interest in the stuff you like. But don’t stick to them “no matter what”. That can bring you into dark places.
Enforcing boundaries helps, talking about things helps, but sucking it up and abandoning people seemingly willy-nilly will leave you alone and angsty pretty fast. So will just taking everything from an asshole.
I don’t have an answer to finding friends yet. Try going to social stuff about the things you like. If you have stuff you deliberately hide then try not to go to those things first, as the shame might make you lash out at potential friends. Wait till you can come to terms with yourself.
Just yesterday, my teenage daughter (not trying to say anything about your maturity level here) said to me that she didn’t like it when I talked about anime because she thought the word was embarrassing. She really likes anime, but she is embarrassed about it because even though she knows anime is fairly mainstream now, she likes more obscure stuff.
I told her that apart from it being a perfectly acceptable word to describe the art form both in and outside Japan, if you spend time worrying about what people think of your interests, you’re wasting time you could spend on those interests- and actually stopping yourself from doing it. And then while you’re doing it, you’re wasting time feeling bad for enjoying yourself when you could just be enjoying yourself.
On top of that, if a friend is going to judge you for your interests, maybe they’re not really a friend. And everyone else? Fuck them. They have to share the Earth with you regardless and if they don’t like it, that’s their problem.