> The people on the party committee. The networking event. Your mom who has called three times. Just imagine those activities boosting all of your stats.

It’s a problem when our definition of “normal” is the blended combination of every more outgoing and more successful person we see combined into one composite super-person.

Most people don’t do anything like a party committee. Most people don’t go to networking events and of those who do, many don’t network or socialize much. Most parents don’t call three times per day.

Yet it’s easy to see (or imagine) all of these behaviors and mentally blend them up into a composite idea of what “normal” means in a way that is far from average.

I see this a lot in students self-diagnosing with ADHD right now: Their mental model of “normal” is actually more like a 99th percentile studying and self-discipline machine, not a typical student. The way they describe “normal” or neurotypical people is more like superheroes with super abilities who have infinite motivation to study for 8 hours per day after cleaning their house to spotless precision and never touching their phone for a break. They have mentally erased the average person from their minds and replaced it with a hypothetical super person who doesn’t exist.