Out of 150 students that graduated my year of high school (2003), an all boys school, I was the only one who chose to follow a computing career.

All my friends, even those with a similar (or more advanced) aptitude and interest in computers, chose different paths. Chemistry. Theoretical Physics. History. Politics. Economics.

Nobody wanted to be doing computing professionally. Men were/are afforded to be outcasts or underdogs, socially; there's some romanticism to it. I'm not sure the same has applied for women, but maybe that's changing.