Reflections on Character

I am currently watching a Japanese series called 電車男 (Train Man). Its based on a true story aboout a Otaku(おたく, a geek, that stumbles across an encounter with a beautiful woman on the train station. The reason why he meets up with her is because a drunk was harrassing her and he manages to have the guts to stand up to the guy. To cut the long story short, he is attracted to her and seeks help on the Japanese forums 2Channel.

I will not dispense with the details with the movie, I know that some of you might like to watch it. But I would just like to reflect on some of the things within the film. The feeling of being an outsider (and perhaps being shunned) is something that I am referring to here.

Being shunned, stereotyped, highighted is something that can damage character. It can make us go more into our "shell". Inside we lose our confidence and we believe ourselves to be that a much worse person that we make ourselves out to be.
I can say for certain that I can empathesise with the main character in this story, Yamada, who is instantenously stereotyped because of his interests and his appearance.

It really makes me wonder sometimes what our society has become. Is it something that we as society do to "avoid" a certain type of character because we might be be scared that people will laugh at us if we associate with a certain type of people that might be considered strange or funny?

What are your thoughts of how we evaluate the character of people?