Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
I told a friend this afternoon about my recent revelation of being autistic. I've known her for years, and I thought she'd be supportive, but she wasn't at all. She questioned why I'd want to have a label. And she also said "well we are all on the spectrum to a degree". I felt she was being distant, and almost dismissive. I tried to explain how this revelation has been positive and is very freeing for me. Our phone conversation has upset me. And I wonder if it's time to move on from this friendship. This isn't the first time she upset me in recent months.
Has anyone else had this experience? I'd like to hear your views.
People try to deal with things that they don’t and can’t understand by blocking their ears and going “lalalala”. Your friend is probably just afraid of the unknown and afraid because she can’t understand or contemplate how you could be autistic and what that might mean. It’s the unknown and people are afraid of the unknown. I highly doubt she reacted like that out of badness. I’m sure she thinks highly of you none the less. Maybe just give her time to process it.
To quote William Belli of Ru Paul’s Drag Race “Excuses are useless, complaining is draining” - even if your friend is ignorant of “unknown” and that they are “afraid of the unknown” that is still not an acceptable excuse in this day and age - indeed not knowing that something was illegal is not a valid excuse as a defence in a court of law, so why should it be an acceptable excuse anywhere else? This is 2023, there is no excuse for not being educated enough in the internet age and to get up to speed quickly enough - your friend needs to grow up and start living in the real world for a change and needs to start accepting reality - as an older Irish gay man who has been on the gay scene a long time from an Irish Catholic background and has endured a lot of prejudice and discrimination from within the gay community from people who should know better, who was diagnosed later in life, I have become very hardline and I have zero tolerance and zero patience with and for such people, especially when they start “throwing shade” even from a place of ignorance