I think the heading regarding people one might socialize with needs fleshing out. Firstly, something-something-something-etc about mirror neurons; less cheekily: we're all heavily impressionable people. -- I highly doubt the problem is as straight-forward as others directly, or perhaps persuasively?, claiming one is a failure. The problem likely is that the people one may socialize with are limited, first off, by the economic categories of industrial-capitalism: they whine about their day, their job, lost objects, their ex, that so-and-so died -- they fill one's mind with trivial, largely distinctly particular statements that cannot be used to develop a theory, in the most general sense. It is the "intuitive" level of socialization limited by the economic-social categories of industrial-capitalism.

They _reflect_ failure, express it, and as impressionable people we are always subject to thought-patterns which compel us to ruminate, rather than problem-solve.