For rock climbing, stick to bouldering. All you need for bouldering is shoes. The situations where even a chalk bag is required are very particular outliers, as are situations where gloves would be a consideration. You could spend plenty of money on shoes of course, same as running, but once you find comfy ones you tend to invest in them over and over again. Like running, it really does come down perseverance - I do think there’s a creativity I didn’t expect in bouldering.
I do enjoy bouldering because of its simplicity (little gear, no need to coordinate with others), but sport climbing gives me something that bouldering does not. Maybe it has to do with flow, as it's easier to get into some kind of flow on a 15 meter wall compared to a 4 meter wall. I'm not sure what exactly it is though that makes sport climbing more attractive to me than bouldering.
(I admit though that due to bouldering's simplicity, I do it much more nowadays compared to sport climbing...)
