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.
If your lucky, your childhood friends will follow a similar career path as yourself. Observing siblings and acquaintances, the ones that seem to have maintained friendships from school to older ages are only the ones that ended up having similar careers in particular sectors that allowed them to remain near their childhood homes.
Personally I took a fully different path and moved thousands of miles away for work. After a few years there simply was little in common to discuss with friends even after I moved much closer. I certainly envy my old friends that stayed together. While the decisions I made have been very successful and rewarding, it came at a cost. Making new real friends when older is pretty difficult and you have to put a great deal of effort into it.