Hi, I'm Simon.

Growing up, I was the kid who could spend a whole weekend inside a game, a book, or a half-broken computer — and who went quiet the moment more than two people were in the room. Systems made sense to me. People didn't. Conversations felt like an API with no documentation: everyone else seemed to have read a spec I'd never been given.

So I did what overthinkers do. I replayed every awkward interaction at 2 a.m. I rehearsed sentences I never said. I read the classic advice — just be confident, just be yourself— and found it about as useful as “just write better code.”

What finally worked was embarrassingly obvious in hindsight: I started treating social skills like any other skill. Break the big scary thing into small components. Find the patterns. Practice one tiny rep at a time — say hi to the cashier, ask one follow-up question, send one specific invitation. Debug what went wrong without treating it as a verdict on my worth. Keep what works, drop what doesn't.

It wasn't fast, and it wasn't a montage. It was years of small, deliberate reps — through university, first jobs, friendships, and dating. But it worked. Not by turning me into an extrovert (I'm still not one), but by making conversations, dates, and meetings feel like things I could navigate instead of survive.

Communication for Nerds is everything I wish someone had handed me at the start: clear frameworks, real scripts, honest examples — and zero manipulation.