I'm often labeled "weird," and I suppose I am, for a variety of reasons.
The biggest, though, may stem from my deafness.
I can hear well enough. Took me a tad longer to learn how to talk, and I was a silent enough child to be dragged to a shrink while all of 4 years old, who figured out I was a bit deaf.
I'm still deaf, and I'm still weird. The child psychiatrist could not fix either.
***
Suspect a lot of it comes from being (literally) shut out of the conversation, as I was, until computer communication started.
I never understood lyrics, never was quite sure what someone said, and even if I did understand, it was at the cost of a beat or two of time, and the conversation moved on without me.
I have trouble saying good-bye, I think, because that tiny pause between what was said and what I hear gets interpreted as me having something more to say. And sometimes folks say good-bye, and I miss it.
As much as I pretend that I am missing the empathy gene, that's a lie. What I am missing is living in the same time instant as everyone else, and that freaks people out, maybe at an unconscious level. It's a common thing among the partially deaf. We are (most of us, anyway), odd.
Traveling on a moor, no worries. Traveling anywhere else, where speech matters, a fucking nightmare. Even ordering a cup of coffee becomes a trial.
Heard dolphins snorting today while on the kayak.
Enough for me....