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when he decided that other kids were

taking advantage of him.

“I was the nicest person you’d ever

want to know,” Alex recalls, “but the

world wasn’t that way. The problem

was that if you were just a nice person,

you’d get crushed. I refused to live a

life where people could do that stuff to

me. I was like, OK, what’s the policy

prescription here? And there really was

only one. I needed to have every person

in my pocket. If I wanted to be a nice

person, I needed to run the school.”

But how to get from A to B? “I studied

social dynamics, I guarantee more

than anyone you’ve ever met,” Alex

told me. He observed the way people

talked, the way they walked—especially

male dominance poses. He adjusted

his own persona, which allowed

him to go on being a fundamentally

shy, sweet kid, but without being taken

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