Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Honestly, it seems like the reason you're struggling is because you hold everyone you interact with in contempt. You either need to learn how to enjoy and value interacting with people who don't share your narrow interests, or you need to accept that you're going to be lonely at least until university.
Though be warned: these educated elite peers you pine for will be just as petty and small-minded as the country yokels you leave behind. Most people--even educated people--are not deep thinkers who you will connect with on some deep intellectual level. Girls at fancy schools aren't any more attracted to spergy themotte-style debates than the ones you're used to. And it gets even worse once you're out in the real world and no one needs to pretend that they did the reading.
I know your misanthropy seems rational to you in your current circumstances, but I promise you, these better people you're looking for don't really exist, and if you neglect forming and maintaining relationships until you find them, all that will result in is a lifetime of loneliness.
Don't wait. Build the skills you need now, when it's still relatively easy for you. Learn to value people very different from yourself, because by the time you find your weirdo fellow travelers, it will be too late. And hey, you might be surprised at how cool a lot of the lowlife scum you're currently surrounded by actually are, once you give them a chance.
You're reading something into my message that simply isn't there, I believe your post contains many conjured assumptions that are not congruent with my actual situation. I have now repeatedly stated that there are several settings where I haven't experienced the issues that I currently do. I have specifically said that I don't expect a random individual on the street to have read the exact books that I have, so I fail to understand where you could've possibly read into me saying that I expect everybody to share my exact interests.
Here is what I've actually said:
At no point have I stated that I expect my social circle to consist entirely of people who participate in spaces like this. I treat everybody with fundamental dignity and have frequently been told that I'm charitable to a fault, though I simply don't draw conclusions about a person from one interaction when I'm not privy to their background, and always wish to assume well-intention among people I speak to. I have pals at church and former classmates with whom I can grab lunch, take a hike, or go to the beach and bond over shared experiences. I don't think I'm unreasonable in setting standards for whom I wish to develop a long-term friendship with. In my town, it is commonplace for people to make overtly sexual jokes around children, people prying into my political views at random right as I introduce myself, people at functions reaching for food in a communal bowl with their hands instead of using the spoon or tongs in it, people nudging me with their shopping carts or standing like deer in headlights instead of asking me to give way, people breathing on me through their mouth as they reach for some frozen pizza, etc. I'm not asking for a highly curated social circle, just that some baseline of social etiquette, curiosity, and open-mindedness exists.
When it comes to a dating partner, I am dating first and foremost with the desire to find a woman I can see myself living with together for eternity. I don't want her interests and background to be identical to mine as I want a relationship where we can mutually refine each other. I do want her to be decently ambitious and well-read.
Huh. I'm having some difficulty interpreting this. I've lived in small American towns, and didn't notice these sorts of behaviors, or not in a way that got on my nerves. Perhaps it's best to treat it anthropologically, rather than looking for a soul mate. I enjoyed living as a single young person in a very small town. They thought me to cut fish, let me participate in town festivals, it was interesting.
Try applying your own curiosity and open-mindedness to your situation, and it will lead to amusing anecdotes you can tell your future girlfriend once you get to college.
Well at this juncture, I am based in Europe. I truly believe White Americans possess higher levels of human capital than Europeans of the same class. I've had plenty of constructive conversations with individuals that many Bostonian elitists would write off as rednecks and country yokels. Some of the American missionaries in my church that I highly respect attend open admissions schools and are not rocket scientists, but nonetheless pleasant people to be around in a way that many of my classmates weren't. I was actually raised in an upper-middle-class pocket of a lower-middle-class Southern suburb, and on paper, that's the same variety of community I reside in in my current area, and yet it couldn't be any more different.
I attend municipal concerts, participate in volunteering initiatives, and even got involved in municipal politics for a brief period. I have met some upstanding people who are highly unlikely to share many of my hobbies, the problem is that those kinds of encounters tend to be sporadic and those people tend to be decades older than me.
I do think the anthropological lens applies to an even greater degree in Europe. Have you read any Orwell? I'd recommend The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London. I've spent some time in Albanian and Georgian villages, and, yeah, probably wouldn't want to marry there and remain forever. But, also, I generally liked the people, they were interesting, passionate, had strong ties to ancient cultures and traditions, made labor intensive cultural foods. They may have been less drained by emigration than some areas, though, and strong cultural self image.
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