the fickle concept that is identity

A person can’t be contained in your ideas about them. This was a core idea for us. To whatever extent I assumed I knew who Johanna was, I treated her as something that I could fit in my head — as something smaller than me. But she couldn’t fit in my head, nor I in hers: that was the exciting thing about it. You can only ever know another individual... See more

Growing up high-functioning or socially aware makes you hyper-attuned to other people's expectations. You learned early to read rooms, you became fluent in the micro-expressions that signal approval or withdrawal, you developed an almost supernatural ability to modulate your intensity, your opinions, your very presence to match what others could

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Spite doesn’t sustain the evolution, it just lights the fire.

But over time, likability becomes resentment in disguise. Because, if you're always understood, you're probably not saying much. And the more you perform agreeableness, the more you resent the audience demanding the performance.