`dang has pointed out the Principle of Charity [0], and I think it's beneficial to go one step further and choose to interpret that people are trying to be help

`dang has pointed out the Principle of Charity [0], and I think it's beneficial to go one step further and choose to interpret that people are trying to be helpful by default. In fact, I think that if a person merely chooses to interprest best-case first by default, you can generally get along with anyone (until they incontrovertably prove you wrong... then it gets a bit awkward fast). I think that if the others are trying not to be jerks, then this awkward soul won't have much trouble. Properly implemented, there can be a lot of slack available to such a person. (Heck, I'm not brilliant, but many people seem to put up with and like me despite being fairly intense when wound up.) EDIT: Hey, references are cool: [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8800322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8800322