He was right about Ralph painting her nails because he wanted to hold her hand. Paige started using that information the first day she learned it, no questions asked. As she slowly started incorporating more physical contact at a pace that Ralph would be comfortable with, he painted her nails less and less.
Months later she had her first question about it: why did kids who were comfortable taking their mom's hand and able to express that desire never actually want to hold their mom's hand? When kids who could do it with no trouble almost never did it, then why was it so important to Ralph that he did it despite how hard it was for him?
She wasn't a genius like every part of the Scorpion team, but she could do the soft science.
Touch between two people released oxytocin - in every human being. If Paige touched a normal person they would both have oxytocin released in their brain without even noticing it. If Paige touched Walter, they would both have oxytocin released in their brain without consciously realizing it. The same if Walter touched Ralph- they both got it. No one ever really noticed it, but it was there and it was happening.
She was always trying to learn about Ralph- not to change him but to understand him. She read all of the books and articles she could find online about Asperger's, or Autism- and no one had any useful information.
And then there was Walter. He had Cade helping him when he was younger and he adapted so well to get along as best as he could in the real world. He had someone who cared about him and wanted to help him. Paige cared about and wanted to help Ralph. Walter cared about, wanted to help, and understood Ralph.
Of course she knew that Ralph was sensitive to physical contact. But she didn't know why. When she read lots of things written by neuroscientists (she couldn't read everything they wrote about Asperger's because there was hard brain science and soft brain science that she could comprehend) they never seemed to know why either. They had theories, but no answers.
The first day she met Walter he helped her understand more than anything she had ever read all in one sentence.
"He does it because he wants to hold your hand, but he can't process physical contact."
Because Walter knew. It seemed more and more lately that scientists were theorizing that touch was beneficial to them- if they were comfortable with that touch in the first place- but they were all just theories.
But Walter knew for a fact.
Walter was a translator too, often without even realizing it. He didn't think about why touch bothered him, he just avoided it. So even if he told Paige every difference he could think of (and the fact that he wasn't good at noticing differences was a difference in and of itself) he wouldn't know what was relevant.
But he would say something sometimes that Paige realized was vital and he didn't even know it. A lot of times it was an intuitive instinct of significance on her part. So unbeknownst Walter often helped her specify her search parameters.
So how she put everything together about touch was by piecing it together over time. It was over a year since she first had the question about why touch was important to Ralph. So it had taken her over a year of slow progress trying to understand, and she was still learning. She was content that she knew enough now, but she was never going to stop trying to learn about them. She was satisfied that she knew how to help them more, but she still didn't understand everything. It was probably impossible for her to ever completely understand. But she was never going to stop trying to understand them.
Normal people connected through social situations and touch, because that was how they could process it- even unknowingly.
They felt a bond from a hug, and being told out loud that they were loved, and even through eye contact. Because their brain released oxytocin in all of those situations, it wasn't that it was because the were the only ones who knew what the words meant- their brains automatically felt good from sweet words and eye contact.
Walter and Ralph's brains didn't automatically feel good from sweet words and eye contact, even though they logically knew that the words were important. Their brains released oxytocin from touch.
Sometimes she wondered if normal people only used eye contact because it was a learned thing that they picked up when they were only weeks old- that their baby brains started doing it and kept doing it their whole life because it was a good experience for them. And she wondered if Walter and Ralph never learned that because their baby brains never responded to eye contact with any sort of feeling. That maybe people always made eye contact because they were driven to seek it out subconsciously and that was it, and they got used to it and did so the rest of their lives. And maybe it wasn't that Ralph wasn't comfortable with eye contact because it was a visual thing, it was that he never ever had a drive to seek it out since he didn't have any benefit from it, and because he wasn't used to it (and might never be used to it even if he tried). She wondered if every human started out that way.
When she and Walter started dating it was clear that touch was very important to him too. From watching him she learned how he interpreted touches.
He was incredibly physically intimate during sex, way more than she ever would have guessed in a million years. He was stingy with contact before, and she assumed that he would have difficulty processing sensory stuff with sex.
But he didn't need any time to adjust, and he was amazing at it. Way more attentive and affectionate and involved with anyone else she had ever been with.
He wasn't so good at emotional intimacy, no matter how hard he tried. But physical intimacy help him feel close to her. Connected. Yes, there was oxytocin released during orgasm, but even hair brushes and hand holding were more valuable to him than the average person. Touch was how they connected with people. Holding her hand helped Ralph feel understood. And a lot more than hand holding helped Walter feel understood.
But it wasn't like physical contact hacked their brain or anything- it wasn't like if you just touched them long enough they would trust you.
They both hated unwelcome touch more than the average person- brushing by them set them on their guard. Even pats on the back were unwelcome from acquaintances and coworkers.
If a random person touched them on their arm for half an hour they'd hate it more than if a random person was touching the back of your neck all day.
If someone was touching them on the arm for 2 hours straight they wouldn't feel any closer to them than any other person would after 2 hours.
If they weren't welcome touches made them incredibly stressed, oxytocin and chemical response be damned.
Even though they never realized how important touch was to them and why, it was almost like they knew. Touch was how they got close to people, and they hated being touched by anyone they weren't 100% sure they wanted to be close with.
Friends, family, and romantic partners were the okay ones- but there was a different level for each of them. No one on Scorpion counted as coworkers or acquaintances- they were all loved ones.
With friends the touches he was receptive to were like if a friend told a normal person "You're a really good friend and I appreciate you."
With family the touches he was receptive to were like telling a normal person "I love you no matter what and you can never disappoint me."
Romantic touches were like telling a normal person "I'm head over heels in love with you and I don't want anyone else for the rest of my life because I only want to be with you."
If a stranger came up to you on the street and said "You're a really good friend and I appreciate you" you would be creeped out hearing that from someone who you had never seen before in your life.
The same with if the waitress at a bar that you'd seen a couple times before said "I love you no matter what and you can never disappoint me."
So the level of touching had to be the equivalent of the relationship that their brain interpreted it as, or else they would be way passed creeped out.
Even after they got together it wasn't like Walter was touching her all the time. It wasn't like a reversal where he wanted nothing more than to hug her all day
Staying on the metaphor it was like emotional sharing for normal people, quick and light touches from her throughout the day didn't set him on edge.
Like someone saying "I'm glad to see you today."
Then there were the soothing and loving touches he would only do Paige, Ralph, and his sister. Brushing the hair on Ralph's head - he didn't do that with any other person, kids or adults. He didn't just do it because Ralph was exactly like him. If Ralph was normal, Walter would still brush his hair because it had nothing to do with them being in the same situation. Touching was how he expressed affection. If Ralph didn't need it, Walter still did - because he wanted to feel that bond, because touching was a double edged sword.
But Ralph was exactly like him and didn't get love communicated through words. Touch let him know he was loved.
Walter touched Paige soothingly like that and let Paige soothe him too. But it wasn't like he would automatically get into it just because it was her.
With the emotional metaphor sometimes it was similar to asking to have a conversation "Hey, can I talk to you?" There were appropriate times for that kind of touch and times that weren't - it was like if you went up to someone while they were in the middle of a test and saying "I need some reassurance because I'm really upset". It wasn't like the other person didn't love you, but they were in the middle of a test with a time limit so they couldn't exactly deal with the distraction very well.
Even if the person wasn't distracted and you asked "Did I ever tell you how much you mean to me?" the other person might not want to get into all of that heavy and deep stuff at the moment.
The 3rd kind of touching was just Walter and Paige. Basically full body contact with sex and all of that. Really amorous touches from him, like romantic and hot. Sweet and sexy. With the way he touched her during sex you would think that he was the most physically affectionate person 24/7, straight down to his core.
All of the levels- it was all about connection. A way for them to feel the bond, since all the social ways didn't get through to them. Normal people could feel a bond through words alone, because their brain released oxytocin when they heard the words. When Walter and Ralph hear words their brain refuses to release oxytocin. They weren't broken and they didn't need to be fixed and have their brains rewired to make them normal. What they needed was to have their brains figured out so Paige would know exactly which wire to send the signal down to make them feel loved.
They needed people just like everyone else. They needed people more than anyone else.
They needed closeness on a mental level and they needed to feel loved- to intrinsically know they were loved. And touch was the easiest way for them to understand that they were innately loved by another person.
That's why Paige never stopped learning. So she could keep finding ways to let them know she loved them more than anything in existence.
Touch was good for now, and maybe that was all she would ever find- but that wasn't a problem because they understood that she loved them through touch. But she wasn't ever going to stop learning so she could give them every bit of love she could hold.
AN:
Based on my own experience of having Asperger's syndrome, and what I've learned watching my 'normal' family members interact with my other family members that have Asperger's too. Plus some research on the science of the brain.
It was annoying because I could find some information on oxytocin reacting with normal brains, and that people with ASD tend to have a lot lower levels of oxytocin than the average person. But if I tried looking up oxytocin and how it reacts in the brain of people with Asperger's and all that came up was oxytocin sprays being developed as a 'cure' for autism, and it was pretty bad.
Like how lots of people with autism hate it when people say it needs to be cured because they're not damaged. Their brain processes stuff differently, but it's not an illness- they're not sick.
From an Aspie perspective:
You shouldn't alter someone's brain chemistry so they can be more sociable (even if you're a well meaning family member). You should learn about their brain so you know how to communicate the fact that they're loved in a way they can process.
And I really like psychology and read about it all the time during my free time so a good bit of this is from my experience since scientific articles from 2015 are realizing that the brain processes stuff differently but they're still theorizing that you can help Aspies by repeatedly exposing them to touches they are uncomfortable with.
And so a lot of this is based on personal experience and as such are just personal theories and not scientifically accepted theories- but I think that having Asperger's myself gives me a head up in how our heads work, but we'll see.
I tried my best with the metaphors cause I guess I wanna be a translator too :)
And I do believe I have some more Scorpion one shots on the way, but I'm not at all sure when they will be out, but I do have a few planned.
I'm on season 1 episode 14 "charades" (with the spies and the love story and Paige helping Walter flirt) so please don't accidentally give away any spoilers after that episode if you comment here. Thank ya kindly