Som, there were so many points in your post to cover, that I had to respond in Word and then come and paste here, so let’s start.

Firstly, most of my friends are from the web, and a proportion of them are writers, but the common ground isn’t writing – it’s atheism and lefty politics – mostly socialism.In real life, I have one friend. She is an editor, but we met each other more than 50 years ago. She remained my friend because she was very kind to me, and so I kept in touch with her.

When people on Facebook that I knew through various groups started supporting Brexit and Trump, they told me something about their personal values. Our political stance always reflects our personal values. I unfriended them. Not interested.

I think I must have learnt to write through reading. I was reading 2 books a day from the age of 7 during the semester and 4 books a day during the vacation. My first piece was published when I was 10 years old. It was a rebuttal to what someone else wrote.

When I was 18 years old, I entered a nationwide writing competition. The judge was the marketing director of a national newspaper. He told me that mine was the finest piece of writing he had seen in 20 years.

So, no, I didn’t learn to write through experience. I just always knew how to write. I think I assimilated it from all the books I read. That said, you are right in that we learn from experience. However, only some of us learn from experience – those of us that analyse what happened. Most people don’t. They get bitter. They get angry. They judge everybody according to their experience. So all men are bastards and all women are bitches.

I take your point about responding to people who pay. 😊And I’m sure that if people paid, even if they were different, they would get an answer. 😊

You are also right that out of a 100 values/interests, we will probably only have 10 or 20 in common. It’s also true that when one initially meets somebody, the things we have in common might not be immediately apparent, and so we reject that person.

I have found people a handful of things in common with me, but nowhere near 20 to 50 things. As one doctor put it, “You’re off-the-graph, and you fit every rare category.” She also said to me that I will always see things that other people don’t see.

Perhaps I am just too different. 😊

With regard to practice. On the first day my sister had her ballet lesson at 6 years old (and she had never seen a ballet performance before, because television was forbidden in our country), her teacher told my mother she was world class. When she was 13 or 14, the Royal Ballet examiner suggested to my mother that she fly to England for her to audition for the Royal Ballet.

Likewise, my brother with singing. He just opened his mouth and sang. He held sports records for a decade or two after he left school. For myself, I just always knew how to write. I never practiced. I never listened in class in the 12 years I was at school, so, again, I have to agree with you. Sometimes, one is just born with a capacity for something. One looks at it, and one knows how to do it. It’s rare, but it happens. It’s called a gift or a talent.

Unfortunately, I don’t really use appliances. So I never had to learn them. CDs had been on the market for 15 years before I saw one or heard about one. When I arrived in the US at the age of 52, it was the first time I saw tumble driers and aircon in homes.

Som, I’m gifted in many areas (even though I have Aspergers and an auditory processing disorder). When my daughter and I were doing 2nd year math at college in San Diego, we chose to go through it quickly, so we picked a class where we could read the text book and do the tests. One of the tutors said to me that he had a masters in math, and he had never in his entire life had seen two people do math the way my daughter and I did. My late father had degrees in law, engineering, and journalism. He spoke 11 languages. For much of his life, he also gave lecturers on astronomy, engineering, and once even designed a rocket ship (before the moon landing). He was there in Berlin when the experiments started, and he was at Einstein’s farewell.

So while I understand what you are saying, I don’t think it applies to me. My experience from watching people in their friendships is that they often just put up with each other because they don’t want to be alone, or there is some other benefit to the connection.

For myself, I have been alone my entire life. I have gotten used to it. I will be alone when I die. That’s just the way the cookie crumbled. I did the best I could with my life, but I will never befriend someone who has different values to me. 😊It’s too stressful.

Oh, yes, and I don't particulary think that Jobs, Zuckerberg, or Gates are that intelligent. My late father would have run rings around them. :) And i see a lot of hols in what they say.