You clearly bother yourself WAY too much with what other people are thinking.
Believe me, you'd be better off pursuing what you truly love instead of trying to fit into what you think is 'normality'.
Nowadays there's no lack of enthusiasts even in the smallest of niches. Just follow your passion and do what you enjoy, the others will be there. Much easier than trying to enjoy things you don't like, and building your social circles around that.
Of course even then you need to be active at least to the point of finding the others out there, but I'd still contest it to be the easier way.
This is true, but it's also nice to have that support circle be folks you can interact with face-to-face. It's so much better. Not that online communities aren't also great.
For some reason, not having someone else look you in the eyes with a similar amount of excitement just isn't the same.
Oh, I was also speaking of "live" socializing instead of online, and agree completely with you. I was just voicing my encouraging experience that even small-to-mid sized cities seem to have a surprising amount of enthusiasts for almost any given interest.