It looks like a person who has loved the same music since she was 12—

And who is on her way *to* a gig, where the same style of music is being played, decades later.

 

It looks like a person who has loved geology since she can remember.

It looks like a person who has loved being alone since she can remember--

(with perhaps one or two friends, who were probably unnecessary in the broader scheme of things).

 

It looks like a person who is never bored.

It looks like a person who can write a million pages in one afternoon.

It looks like a person who will cross the road to avoid a short conservation with a neighbour.

It looks like a person who won’t go to the same post-office again, even it if means now having to drive—

Because the person in the first post office---very sweetly engaged her in a superficial conversation about the weather.

 

It looks like a person who will believe you and take you at face value (despite her intellect).

It looks like a person with very little hidden agenda, if any (what's the point of a hidden agenda?).

It looks like a person who doesn’t care even 1% about Netflix (or anything like it).

It looks like a person who is obsessed with Leonard Susskind and never wants him to die.

 

It looks like a person who cannot provide an academic reference for a Ph.D programme—

Because none of her university tutors really knew who she was—

Because she skipped a high % of lectures in favour of working alone from textbooks in the library-

This is a true story.

Of a ghost

But this time, a ghost by choice, and not because she came off her bike in Manchester.

 

It looks like a person who hates superficiality and corrosive petty societal norms.

It looks like a person who (when trapped proximally) may want to engage you immediately in a conversation about the things not supposed to be spoken about by a woman: politics, world events, religion, the rise of the right, and yes, Leonard Susskind.

 

It looks like a person who is regularly deemed ‘mysterious’, when she actually isn't.

It looks like a person who is frequently misunderstood, often in bad ways, for no concrete reason.

It looks like a person who is happiest when self-absorbed in her own head.

It looks like a person who loves podcasts.

It looks like a person who is never bored BECAUSE the world is full of interesting facts.

It looks like a person who, when betrayed, doesn't comprehend THE POINT of betrayal.

 

It looks like a person who struggles to understand sociopaths.

How can *anyone* lack empathy for another human being?

It looks like a person who doesn’t know how ‘a lack of empathy’ EVER made it into the diagnostic criteria *for* autism.

It looks like a person who would like to find the idiot who added 'lack of empathy for others' TO the diagnostic criteria---and chat to them about it.

At length. 

 

It looks like a person.

It looks like me.

And I’m not lacking in empathy.

For anyone.

I'm just not a 'people person'.