Published on 12, July, 2020
By the time I was 13 years old I knew that I would forever be alone--- no spouse, no "girlfriends," no hope for romance, and no hope for love. This was obvious because I knew I was the only orange monkey in the monkey cage, and I was brutalized because I was (and am) "strange."
If I were capable of feeling hate I would write "I hate being autistic."
I do, however, utterly detest being autistic: autism has robbed me of my life. Autism took from me the chance of finding a woman who found me worthy of standing by her side, as two equal partners. What autism left for me in exchange was 61 years of a loneliness so suffocating, so ravenous, so crushing of spirit that I longed for death --- only my brother's compassion stayed my hand.
I loathe my inability speak nouns and pronouns when I am talking with people face to face: the Anomic Aphasia kicks in and I struggle to say the names of objects (that includes humans) , nor the names of places. My mind knows the word but I cannot speak it: try having a successful job interview when the evaluator believes you are on drugs--- I sound like I am choking because I am.
I abhor my inability to remember something that I heard mere seconds ago.
I deplore the way I rock side to side when I sit; rock on my feet side to side when standing in line at the grocery store; spinning on my heals to release some of the anxiety I collect when I am among the humans.
A few days ago (Monday June 14, 2021) my councilor (via telephone) told me that I "still have around twenty years left; there is still time to find love." I shivered with dread. I do not want to live another twenty years with painful eyes because I am required to look at people's eyes (it is agony for me). Twenty more years of strangers insisting that I must "shake hands." Twenty more years of strangers calling me by my first name--- as if we were already intimate.
Twenty more years of being macerated in the vicious jaws of loneliness.
It is a wonder that I have not been driven insane. Yet.
Neurotypicals send and receive signals that autistic people have difficulties with. Initial exchanges in what can become romantic relationships are based around these signals. Therefore, for neurotypicals, the groundwork of finding out that mutual attraction exists is done well before the 'first date' is arranged. I have realised, days, months or even years after a situation that might have led to romance had passed, that a woman was attracted to me. This is obviously very frustrating, Though I was unaware that I was autistic at the time, I realised that the likelihood that someone I was attracted to would outright say that she was attracted to me was essentially non-existent and that I needed to make myself emotionally vulnerable. I made it obvious that I was attracted to my now wife of nearly 25 years, who remarked at how open and honest I was, and, obviously, it worked. It took a great deal of moral courage, but being so patently useless at neurotypical flirting, it was the only method I could envisage succeeding. 'Making obvious' in this context is through talking and being open about ones feelings, not professing undying love on a first date, or buying inappropriately lavish gifts. That would tend to scare the recipient. As autistic people, we present challenges to our loved-ones, but we have good features too, we tend to be loyal, accepting, diligent and kind. Unfortunately, I think that autistic people, because we are handicapped by reduced abilities in non-verbal (and sometimes verbal as well) communication, have to make ourselves unusually emotionally vulnerable to succeed in initiating romantic relationships.
Thank you for your excellent observations about how different autistic people and other people tend to be: your insights should be contemplated, and I will do so.
Many years ago I sometimes went to a bar after work, even thought I never drank alcohol, and I observed how people interact so well---- specifically between women and men. They made it look so bloody easy, yet it utterly baffled me. Indeed, I still find it mystifying. I could not see "how they did it," even though I was intensely watching. They just seemed to.... "merge" is the word ... as if they were mages using magic.
Though I was unaware that I was autistic at the time, I realised that the likelihood that someone I was attracted to would outright say that she was attracted to me was essentially non-existent ....
I grieve for your young innocence. You applied logic and reason to that which eschews intellect over emotions. Good gods, what a hard lesson to learn! In a better society, people would just come out and say how they feel for others.
Yet I also learned that with autistic people they might not understand what a potential mate has said when they profess interest. In my experience a woman can bluntly state they are interested, but my autistic mind did not know what she meant.
People talk and write about how autistic people tend to be "blind" to some social cues; we do not notice the cues that other people notice and find obvious.
Sometimes, I have recognised, we can be our own worst enemies. On one occasion, a young woman made it very clear that she was attracted to me, even I could not fail to recognise it. She essentially threw herself at me, and I failed to catch! She was a number of years younger than me, and although I was not her line manager, or in a teaching role as such, I was training her in some scientific techniques. Taken together, these factors convinced my stupid sense of propriety that it would be inappropriate. I still mentally kick myself, as she was intelligent and quite unnervingly physically attractive.
I do have above average DIY and spider handling skills though.
I'm also a fairly decent listener (sometimes) & I'm kind to animals and children which seems to get me by...
LOL! Well, I am ruggedly handsome, and so far it has got for me nothing. :-)