[He falls quiet for far longer after he finishes, mulling everything he has said. Eventually, what he thinks and wants coalesces from it.]

I believe I've used an ability to connect to others as a metric of sorts, because I know I care about my research, for example. My agendas. I'm quite attached to my habits and proclivities, all of which point to some emotion.

My attachments to vampires have been less emotional, barring my lover and my sire, to a lesser extent my childe in the beginning, and more transactional, as they almost always are among my kind.

[He taps his own knee with an index finger.]

I believe you hit upon the true rub of it in saying I'm trying something in which I have no experience. I can't think of the last time I've done that. I stick to areas in which I have mastery, not out of fear of failing, but from efficiency. It works. I've needed nothing else to satisfy me or perform my duties and expectations.

And in my world, failure is more weighty than hurt feelings or a partially severed hand. My perfectionism is in my way.

[He shakes his head.]

I'm not quitting. If I hurt people in being myself, I hurt them. It's not out of dishonesty at this point. If I meet someone who can handle it or doesn't see it as a flaw, then that's a step forward.