It Was Not Empathy

Sometime in the last year he had discovered an obvious truth that had escaped him in his youth: adults are little more than children that have grown up and mostly learned how to cover up the insecurities that continued to plague them. Some use bourbon, some write journals or passive-aggressive Facebook comments; only a few overcome the insecurities outright. By now he was adept at reverse-engineering adults by unpacking their guarded and jaded personalities into a workable mockup of the child, adolescent and lost twenty-something that had preceded the supposedly mature man or woman interacting with him now. It was not empathy but it did help him fake it.

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