It’s funny, despite being vastly into fandom for all of that time , I managed to avoid the majority of the fandom wank.
Apart from being involved in fanfic writing and reading - particularly the explicit end to begin with, though that’s changed - I went to a fairly big Harry Potter fandom con, since it was in my hometown and I didn’t need to pay for accommodation, and several tiny ones (- these were the pre-obvious-bigot days: I attended the big con with a trans guy friend who was staying with me, though he wasn’t officially trans yet.)

I did fall out with a couple of people of my own accord, which I’m sad about because I don’t know what I did wrong - but both of them had a history of falling out with people, so possibly it was them and not me. I just tend to presume I autistically did something wrong.

But yeah, I’ve always used books and fandom as escapism, and to be honest, when one of the issues we’ve got at the moment is money, at least fandom is free! And you’ve reminded me I need to talk through a FaceTime type thing to my friend from going-to-HP-con days because I miss him and we keep intending to catch up and forgetting (and btw, no, i don’t usually refer to him as a “trans guy friend” rather than a “male friend” but because of context the trans part happened to be relevant!)