@moonymuses said: "You have all the answers right in front of you. You just need look at it differently."
❝ That’s about as vague as it gets, ❞ Henry remarks dryly. He’s all for a little mystery every so often, but when he’s looking for advice? It’s not his favourite approach. ❝ Look, I… really struggle with social scenarios sometimes. I can’t always understand why people react the way that they do. I don’t think any amount of shifting my perspective is going to help. It’s… different, for me. ❞
And the frustrating thing is that he can’t properly articulate why. It isn’t as if he’s an idiot, and he has very high empathy even if he doesn’t always understand why he exhibits it, but every so often an obvious joke will fly over his head, or he’ll miss a cue that was incredibly ostentatious to everybody else around him. He’s learned the hard way that somebody checking their watch during a conversation usually means they want to leave.
He’d just thought they wanted him to compliment their watch, for they kept drawing attention to it.
❝ It’s like… sometimes I think I’m doing so well. I’m caught up. On the same page as everybody else. And then somebody tells a joke in a slightly aggressive tone and I get confused. Are we angry about this or not? Do I joke back or do I offer to kill the person who upset them? I’m uncertain how to navigate tones sometimes. It’s… like everybody around me suddenly starts speaking a different language. ❞
Maybe he’s just broken. Maybe his mother was right.
