He described the following thought process whenever he was in conversation with a group of people at a party: “I wish I could come up with something to say…why didn’t I think of that thing that person just said? Then I’m so far behind and I realize I haven’t said anything for ten or fifteen minutes, and now I might as well just pay attention to other people.”

When he did meet people, Todd didn’t follow up about getting together. He seemed befuddled about whether he should be texting people more often or sending out more birthday cards.

Fortunately, Todd was happy to be alone most of the time. His propensity to look inward, he felt, helped him understand the technology he used for work in a deeper way. But, even in our first phone call, he wondered, ever so tech-ily, if this lifestyle “scales.” He was worried that he didn’t really have any guy friends to talk with about married life or fatherhood. He had been on his own socially for so long, it was starting to wear away at him. He was beginning to experience the downsides of his own weirdness.

It would turn out that his long game of solo Monopoly was quickly coming to an end, in a disastrous way.

While working on this book, I realized that sometimes my weirdness was someone else’s fault, but sometimes it was actually mine. Sometimes it was no one’s fault, but the wound from all the previous times was still so raw that I reacted three or four or forty times as strongly as I needed to. Later, experts would tell me this is called “inflammation.” Either way, my weirdness was the defining experience of my life. Both my pathologies and strengths flow from it.

At some point several years ago, I decided to start interviewing people who also seem like misfits, but who for the most part handle it well. It was an attempt, I later realized, to answer the question: Why are they so comfortable with themselves, and I’m not? (Later, experts would tell me this feeling is called “impostor syndrome.”) For this book, I’ve interviewed more than three dozen people who are unique in their environments: they live or work in situations where—because of their ideology, gender, race, background, or some other factor—almost no one else is like them.