Someone wrote me an email. In part, it read:

The flipside of the cocktail party effect I mention above is never trusting anyone, or never trusting anyone outside of a certain group. Cops are famous for this, and with good reason, but the consequences on this side can be even worse than on the other, because we end up isolated, and isolated people are fundamentally emotionally vulnerable.

I think that this is one of the hardest uncompromising positions you take; the willingness to subordinate the very real benefits of personal contact to Truth.  I respect it, and I often make the same choice myself, but I worry about it for your sake.  I have a robust support system, and I have the strong impression that you don’t.  Also, though I tend to be moody, I think that my biochemical system runs more evenly than yours.  These two factors means that I can make the choice in relative safety, because the impact of writing off any lost social contact is minimal, while the impact on you is likely to be more significant.

That, right there, is the price people pay for essential human contact - they compromise their ideals in order to get along.  And at its furthest limit, for extroverts (and they’re in the majority), if they don’t pay that price they go insane and lose everything anyway.  It’s easy to judge, in the middle ground, but at the edges I feel for people who have to choose between essential human contact and less-essential moral high ground.

And, when I respect them and am fond of them, I also worry about people like you, at the other margin, who choose Truth over personal support networks.

This put a lump in my throat and saltwater in my eyes.