A memoir of autism, masking, and belonging by a clinical psychologist.

Why would a person learn to treat love, safety, and belonging as a problem to solve

Again and again, a young man misreads social situations and learns the rules only after the punishment: exclusion, embarrassment, lost chances, distance. Can he break down human behaviour piece by piece, to reverse-engineer a life that might lead to belonging?

His search shapes everything - friendship, love, work, and ambition - and eventually leads him to professional training as a clinical psychologist.

He spent decades trying to fix something, only to realise that what he was looking at was never broken in the first place.

In trying to be normal, he loses himself. What he finds instead is that love is still love, even when it is shown and felt differently.