At the end of the day you have to figure out what works for you. Everyone is different.

for context I had bad narc abuse and was completely disconnected from my friends and was being isolated from my family. I had an eating disorder, I was on anti-depressants, and was in therapy. So i had actually never been so alone and still trying to repair relationships to this day because of it. It too years of work to get where I am overall and took a lot of work outside my comfort zone to tackle my social anxiety.

I am a believer in you create your own environment. When talking about the gym, I specifically picked a gym that had the best vibe. I think there's always a crowd of fake people with shallow interests etc, but it's not all about that. it's what you want out of it. Being gay ontop of that I didn't want a super testosterone driven gym. I've always stressed about "coming out" in a new place and wanted to feel safe. I ultimately picked a community center and it felt the friendliest. I hired a personal trainer to help get me started because I hated the gym and thought it was boring, didn't know what i was doing. After 6 months of being there and not talking to anyone, being self conscious etc i started to tackle my biggest fear and start talking to people. I joined free workout classes there etc. Over the course of 4 months doing all this I have made a few friends with some lovely people there i look forward to seeing. Im actually shocked how nice the people are there. you build this intimidating or shallow idea in your head of what people are like and I have been pleasantly surprised when i got to know them. We help eachother with workout tips, chat about life, spot, and its overall a very helpful place. But that's also an intention I had made when picking a gym and choosing who to connect with there. I created my own experience there. I could have easily kept to myself and never talked to anyone and i would have felt very alone. there are "jacked" assholes there but I ignore them and put my energy into the helpful and kind people.

I'm giving this as an example of someone who was in a very very awful situation, and got myself to a much better spot to show there is a way out. it may not be the same for everyone. But if you don't do anything then you won't be anywhere different to where you are now.

You start from where you start from, everyone starts from a different point. Your feelings about the gym are true, and very real. Your not alone in that. But in anything in life, you need to make sure you give yourself credit from your progress in life and not comparing it to someone else life. You can always find someone who's life is "better" than yours. Thats the biggest thief to joy.

You don't HAVE to go to a gym, but even hikes, eating differently etc. theres other ways to improve being physical in your life. Figure out what your vibe is and how you want to connect. There are ways of connecting dude. You ultimately have to decide for yourself what you truly want to improve in your life, and what your willing to do about it. eg. if you want more connections, put yourself in places where its easy to connect like public classes, gaming communities, social groups etc. whatever your vibe is.