As a teenager, I was a Yudkowskyist rationalist. I viewed myself as a pariah. Who cares how many people like me, I reasoned, so long as I'm living true to myself?
This was the form I intentionally molded myself into. I knew that I would never be happy as an Orthodox Jew, but I was in an Orthodox Jewish community. I knew that people who prioritized human connection over pure logic would inevitably conform to the community. I knew that if I did so, I'd become Orthodox Jewish, which was an unacceptable outcome. I knew too that showing emotional vulnerability with my abusive mother would inevitably lead to her demanding more religious adherence from me.
So I cut myself off emotionally from other people. I approached every conversation like an argument, and treated everyone who talked to me like an interlocutor. The friendships I had were genuine, founded on true mutual enjoyment of one another's company, but still, I didn't pull any punches in dissecting every statement they said to me and verifying its truth for myself. Even with my closest friends, I felt scared to be emotionally vulnerable, to accept their ideas uncritically, for fear of losing myself.
The environment I was raised in necessitated that, and I stand by it, but it's been hard to readjust after I escaped that bubble. I clearly missed several years of social development, and I was already autistic, but I'm slowly learning how to open up to people again.
I'm making real friends once again. I'm talking to random people on public transit. I'm making real human connections, completely unburdened by webs of power dynamics, for perhaps the first time in my life.
Is it worth it? I think so. I'm gaining so much from this human connection, and it's really helping me become the social person I've always wanted to be. I can't claim to be running my brain optimally like a computer anymore, but I'm happy, and I won't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
