I completely understand your situation. How it worked for me is that I would always hang out with my best friend and sense my friend was the more charming of the two of us so people would naturally say hi to him only and what htey really ment was hi to both of us. They would also always ask where my friend was.
What I did was I started to distance myself from him for a while to reconnect with our mutual friends and show them that my friend is not the only one who can be helpful or charming I guess. Also when people would say hi to him and not me I would just say hi to them so they can acknowledge im there to. Some times when two people are always hanging out there is always a more charming of the two so people naturally lean to that person.
My advice in short is to just make yourself more known start saying hi to people. When people say hi to your friend when your around say hi to them to. Don't wait for people to say hi.
When people ask where is your friend ask them if you can help instead. Thats what worked for me anyways.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.