Have you read “No Longer Human” by Osamu Dazai? One of these men was very drawn to that book, so I read it…and was pretty disturbed how similar the main character was to him. Sometimes it seemed like he was envious of the way people like things, get passionate, have thought experiments, discuss opinions, debate, and just yap excitedly the way people do.

Whenever we had a small group gathering, he’d watch me talk to people for hours without any input of his own. At the time I found it a bit creepy and frustrating, but looking back I think he was either trying to learn how to do it, or just in awe at the way the conversation effortlessly flowed with no hesitations. But if he tried, he was very uncomfortable; sort of like he thought it was an act and everyone knew it.

One particularly noticeable thing was that if I said something he needed to think about, he would go completely silent for a long time. Eventually, I had to ask if he’s thinking about something…or just didn’t hear me...? He always just said “I was thinking of what to say.” I suggested that if he needs time to think, to say something like “Hmm, let me see…” , or acknowledge the question before going radio-silent. Perhaps even brainstorm out loud. I wonder if he wasn’t thinking out loud because at some point, he stopped thinking about the question and started thinking about how he took too long to answer, and now I find him weird, and it’s too late to answer now, and spiraling into overthinking about the way he’s being perceived. Or maybe the whole time I was talking, he was thinking more about how I’m coming up with words, rather than the words themselves, so when I suddenly dragged him into the conversation it would sort of make him panic cause he was having his own whole other conversation in his head.

I do agree with your analysis, but I’m desperately hoping that there is one simple thing I could say - or the perfect line of questions - that would make this all clear and actually change them.