Do not pity us. Would you feel sorry for someone who doesn't work hard to stop being a cruddy developer? We are not alone. I'm someone who doesn't naturally g

Do not pity us. Would you feel sorry for someone who doesn't work hard to stop being a cruddy developer? We are not alone. I'm someone who doesn't naturally get social cues. I don't recognize faces. I was bullied, ostracized, and grew up in an abusive household until I convinced my mother to divorce. While children were being children I was protecting my mother, becoming her key social support by 13. I had to be a man before I hit puberty, never having the luxury to act out, cry, or lament the injustice of my situation. There were starving child soldiers in Africa; I had it pretty good. I was a serious A student and got along with adults. As a result, I was quietly arrogant and unsympathetic. I shunned social interaction with the children around me whom I perceived to be stupid, emotionally weak, rebellious, attention-craving, and suicidal for no valid reason, instead deciding to wait until they grew up. They never did. To my surprise, I did. I finally realized that one of the single most important skills for success in society is the ability to handle people and social situations. A person is not competent or above average without it. At some point, you are going to hit the limit of what one person can do and will have to leverage the competencies of others. They will have some you won't, plus one the most valuable commodity of all: time. It is still possible to be a single person success, like Markus Frind from POF, but it often requires social skills and I don't like the odds. Had I realized this sooner, I would be much further ahead. Turns out I wasn't so smart. Luckily, I only need a decent foundation; this ability can be bought like any other. I have invested a ton of effort into addressing this with the help of a couple close friends. Progress can be frustrating. Things can be obvious to others yet when you ask them it turns out they either cannot explain, or don't really understand themselves. Everything Is Obvious examines the difficulty in creating a socially capable AI/robot: "social skills" are in fact a collection of often disparate, complex, illogical, and incongruous data points. We all have challenges in life. This is one of my greatest. If you share it with me, I understand. It is every person's responsibility to choose to improve themselves and to help those around them who've done the same. We can guide people to this choice, but we cannot make it for them. If you meet us, give us your patience and compassion as you would to any person who doesn't intuitively grasp something incredibly obvious and fundamental to you. I will do my best to do the same for you, though it might not always come off that way.