I've made a good number of great friends through flying. It's a very good community.
As for getting ridiculed, this has always gone on and aviation in particular suffers from a load of patronising old farts; most of them being instructors who want to keep you in your place so you keep hiring their beaten up wreckage on which the last "licensed engineer" practically emptied the labelling machine just making up the INOP stickers. These people will feed you any amount of bull to stop you from getting out on your own and god forbid buying your own decent plane so you can go places. And I am a bloke - or was when I last looked walking up the hill a short time ago.
It's a pity this thread got hijacked early on by the feminist crowd.