I did not and will not read anything beyond the main post here because as someone who suffers from occasionally severe social anxiety I see where they're coming from and my blood would boil if I saw any hostility or passive aggressive replies to them here.

To the topic creator, it took me 7 years to finally join a free company that does its best to push everyone to socialize and play together. The cliques are real, just like anywhere with more than like 10 people.

Everyone has their own tightly closed circles and at best someone who failed to form their own circle by the time they were done with college are basically stuck being the outsider no matter who they assume they became friends with. People who have their own love to talk as if they understand but they really don't. And their flowery speeches just add painful salt to the injury.
And with those circles comes mob mentality. Which is just plain scary and makes you hate yourself for not sharing the same opinions. And before long you stop believing anything you have to say holds any value and everything feels completely futile.
You then try again with a different group and the cycle repeats.

At least as far as FFXIV goes there are some free companies, very few of them, that encourage everyone to talk, play events together and help each other. The clique is still there of course, and just because the higher ranks are nice and helpful doesn't mean they want to be your friends. But hey they don't let toxicity or passive aggressiveness in the chat at least.
So keep looking.