In order to improve his college prospects, Curt convinced his parents to allow him to transfer to a large public high school. The problem there, however, was that most people in his class of 450 students already knew each other, and Curt had never met so many new people at once. This giant group of teenagers did as teenagers do: they were extremely body conscious, they weren’t accustomed to the look of Curt’s arm, and they weren’t tactful in how they asked about it. Rumors circulated that Curt had polio. One boy sidled up to him in the middle of class and asked, “So what’s up with your hand? Is it just totally dead and withered or what?” A girl once accidentally bumped into his arm, then ran out of the room crying. At senior prom, his date ditched him for another boy. Curt ended up going to church a lot and playing Counter-Strike by himself.

When it was time for college, Curt earned a scholarship to nearby Purdue University, but when he visited, he found himself too intimidated by the frat houses and jocks. I’m not gonna fit in again, he thought. This is going to be a repeat of high school.

Then he visited a much smaller, private engineering college, where he met a bunch of nerdy kids building a giant air cannon. Those were his people. Everybody here is a weirdo, he thought. It would be easier, he decided, to fit in with a bunch of kids who didn’t fit in anywhere themselves.

Curt was right. He joined the other computer nerds, rarely going to parties but drinking in his dorm room plenty. (He had shed his Baptist beliefs at that point.) The mostly male campus was so unconcerned about appearances and popularity, in fact, that its hygiene levels were among the most horrific Curt had ever seen. At one point, the situation became so fragrant that the students were given tokens that said “Take a shower” and “Do your laundry” to hand to one another. (This little factoid is in part why Curt asked me not to name the school.)

Curt found that in this quirky, geeky utopia, he was no longer “the smart kid.” Unlike in high school, many students were more scientifically gifted than he was, but they tended to be socially awkward. Curt decided that in order to distinguish himself, he would try to craft a new identity as a naturally sociable extrovert.

“I always thought people who were outgoing were happier,” he told me. “They seem like they’re having more fun. I wanted to be that person, and I’m painfully logical, so I thought, ‘I’ll make myself do it.’”