I feel you, after the 50th favorite character list and 500 different shipping combinations I start wondering if fandom is the place for me, too. It does become a matter of finding like-minded individuals to be fannish with in a way that you want to be, which is harder because, as you pointed out, they're not nearly as organized and visible (which is probably part of the reason why some of us get so invested in getting friends into our shows/books). Good meta and interesting fanfics are still out there, and are in some ways more abundant than ever, but searching them out is often a matter of luck and chance in my experience.