I wanted to take care of everyone’s feelings. If I made them feel good, I would rewarded with their affection. For a long time, socializing involved playing a weird form of Mad-Libs: I wanted to say whatever you wanted to hear. I wanted to be assertive, but also understanding and reasonable and thoughtful.

I really took what I learned and ran with it. I wanted to master what I was bad at and made other people happy. I realized that it was: bad to talk too much about yourself good to show interest in other people’s hobbies, problems, and interests important to pay attention to body language my job to make sure that whatever social situation we were in was a delightful experience for everyone involved