I don't usually use the word "suck."

There are some groups of people whose manner of living life and expressing themselves is so different from my own, that I know that about 95 percent of what I say around them is sure to be completely misunderstood. It's really discouraging, so I just end up hardly talking at all whenever I am with those sorts. Which is fine; I don't have to talk, but when I don't, I'm afriad of being thought to be bored or snobbish. When I'm with my best friends or my family, I am one of the most talkative, witty, even outspoken. But with some people, I can hardly comment on the moment, much less tell a story, and the more I talk to them, the less they respond and the stupider I feel.

It's not that I'm not uncomfortable around new people. Sometimes with mere acquaintances you know you're on their wavelength and they're on yours. I'm just talking about people who are extraordinarily difficult to get to know, and in the meantime, you're pretty sure of being 5 percent understood. How does one overcome that? And the worst of it is, in my current situation, I know that I'm the one who is hard to get to know, I'm the one who is strange and unfathomable and misunderstandable. And there's really nothing I can do about it. I never wanted to be normal, but I didn't realize that being from an out-of-the-ordinary background could be so inconvenient. Most of the time it's more than worth it, but other times it kind of sucks.