not sure if I’m understanding correctly, but you’re telling your friends that you can’t do xyz because your work will be affected? when it comes to friendships in general, if you’re constantly turning down invites for whatever reason, then it just comes off as you don’t want to do anything with that person. at least that’s how I would feel - and then eventually I would stop trying hang out.
also if I had a friend that only talked about one individual subject (tech or otherwise) and I felt like I couldn’t have just normal conversations with them, I don’t know how much effort I’d be willing to put into talking to them. I love talking about games or shows I like with friends, but that’s just a small portion of what we’d talk about
i don’t know if any of that helps, but that’s how I would feel going off of what I understood you to be saying