Pretempathy

I am not always exactly the tops at compassion and human fellow-feeling. Various individuals who have been patient enough to live around me over the years can attest to this quality; they have all discovered my impressive ability to get aggravated over offenses that, in retrospect, might not actually require a full Red Alert.

As far as I can tell, this penchant for escalation is not a universal human trait. A few people I know seem supernaturally capable of seeing the best in everyone.

I, on the other hand, am considerably better suited to making up nonsense than to consistently appreciating the value of humanity. Luckily, this is a power that I can use to disguise my shortcomings.

In order to infiltrate productive society, I’ve started to artificially approximate empathy by inventing stories to explain other people’s behavior. It works particularly well with the phone calls I get at work.

These calls come in a variety of flavors, so I get a lot of practice.

My own demeanor, of course, never requires explanation.