Hey Y'all; Yinz; Yous; Yo, and YOU GUY-IZE!
I'm a 35 year old Aspy-hi-func man, (and yes that was a reference to "The Goonies"). If like me, you joined up hoping to finally connect with someone who can honestly relate to always having some inherent factor of their nature setting them at odds with "the group", I'll promise you right-off-the-bat to be as frank and real as I can't help but be, and to reciprocate your efforts to interact meaningfully. (Sorry for the run-on sentence. I'm good like that.)
It feels like there's just about nothing else to upheave in my little corner of the universe. This is the first site I've ever registered with, and the first forum I've engaged in the hopes of finding connection. (But no pressure folks.) I've finally been single long enough to remember the upside of it, although I haven't learned to date casually, so it gets kinda lonely sometimes. I'm working on my first major "non-artistic" writing project (working title of the book: "A Brief History of Consciousness"). And like it says in the header, I'm shipping off to Seattle. I haven't always had a group of friends, but I've pretty much always had what the old timers call a "partner in crime".
The part of my life that I can remember started (around age 2) with the feeling that I was trapped in a dream. That feeling still hasn't gone away entirely, but I've come to have developed what I guess you could call a real respect for this reality, if only as an extension of my respect for those confined to it. But on another level, my life has gone from self-doubt, to self-analysis, to self-improvement, to self-exploration, to self-acceptance, to self-fulfillment.
I never needed anyone to tell me to care about making a difference in the world. I've always attracted people with deep-rooted pain, and provided the timing was right, by the time we parted that root wasn't quite as strong. To take the plant analogy one step further, the flip-side is that I've never been terribly good at cutting down branches on the surface, which can seem like all the healing most people have any interest in. As a landscaper I learned that cutting down the stalk doesn't kill a weed, it makes the roots grow deeper. As it turns out though, the confidence that someone else cares, that comes by seeing another's effort to simply comfort them with a joke, a hug, or at least changing the subject when their face turns grey, is where you have to start if you really want to help.
I was researching for my book, when I read the name of this site and it rung my bell like an uppercut! I've had this running half-joke I drop when people ask me where I'm from. My origin of ethnicity is Korea, so in Pittsburgh that question translates to"What racial stereotype shall I assign you?". So I like to say, "I'm reincarnated from a galaxy far far away, and I'm here to help".
Nothing hurts like feeling unrecognized, and I finally have my permission to expect from the world a different experience. Hopefully that's where you come in. I'm the last person who would assume that sharing in the hugely diverse state of having ASD is sufficient grounds for an adult friendship, and I can't figure out these kids today to save my life, so who knows on that front, but one of you fellow aliens has to have come from my neck of the cosmos, and I'd really like to meet you.
Part of the way my condition manifests is that all of my actions are deliberated, as I am what they call "hyper-conscious". Socially, that has historically amounted to me being perceived as motivated by the opposite of my actual intentions, even among long standing friends. As you can see, in communicating it amounts to a pattern of didactic pedanticism. Attempts at following the advise to "be more natural" have only compounded these effects, but with the right muse, I've been described as "soooo funny". My last girlfriend used to have to hide in the bathroom til her cheeks stopped cramping, and I could still hear her laughing through the door.
I invite you to check out my profile (Hope they fixed the glitch that makes it say I'm 45, I had plans for that decade!), read my other posts, leave me a private message, make fun of me for not having a Facebook page, whatever makes you happy.
They call me Ben. Thanks for letting me share!
08 Apr 2015, 9:25 am
