There is a local game & comic store that hosts card games & crap that I’ve been trying to get involved with, but any time I go there people just are not willing to engage with me

Nerds have that problem. They're so used to people being dicks to them that they think this is the normal mode of human interaction. Thus it's really hard to get in with them, because they take any opportunity to turn the table and be the one doing the ostracizing for once.