You actually don’t become a former gifted child, you become a gifted adult. Feeling things with intensity set to 11, perceiving little nuances that make people unsettled, shit’s rough. And then you turn 37 and realize you don’t owe shit to anyone and you’re finally freed. You aren’t some marionette built to do tricks to show how smart you are. But people still think you’re weird as fuck because you still figured out and finessed the game and you work in a warehouse and have 4 houses or something dumb like that. But you’re finally at peace and you can do anything from hanging drywall to modyfing a BIOS and you just quit trying to showcase it

Purely anecdotal but I tend to avoid any sensitive hardware purchases off of Amazon because they suck at packaging things a lot of times and I’ve had more than a few DOA components because they just tossed the box into an even larger box then apparently yeeted it down a flight of stairs

Edit: I should add that I live 10 minutes from a Microcenter which plays a large part in my overall pickiness, but that said, when I’m looking for something sensitive to handling and needs to be purchased online I stick to computer hardware retailers solely because they love packing peanuts and bubble wrap as much as the components love them