Yes. That is in fact pretty much exactly what I'm arguing. People are often horrible.
> BUT, you definitely can make sure you surround yourself with decent people...
People generally can't. Otherwise there'd be a bunch more noticeable social stratification to isolate abusive spouses instead of it being politely ignored. And if people could, you would - you note in the next sentence that you can't being dealt with in an inappropriate way.
And you aren't even trying to identify people who are generally low empathy, you're just trying to find people who don't treat you badly.
> me the frustrated kind of person you seem to be.
The irony in a thread on empathy. What frustration? Being an enthusiastic human-observer isn't usually frustrating. Some days I suppose. But that sort of guess is the type of thing that AIs don't tend to do - they typically do focus rather carefully on the actual words used and ideas being expressed.