I thought I would share this embarrassing moment for those who wonder what goes through our minds when we get into social trouble. I'm self-diagnosed, so I am by definition suspect, but my childhood in particular (back when they didn't diagnose AS) matches almost every symptom down to the inappropriate giggling and speech patterns (this lack of diagnosis always bothers me and I think there is no hope for adults with AS because they only diagnose and help kids -- so, life is a thing to get endure solo for mine and past generations and good for the new generation!)
The story starts at a social function, naturally. I am a computer consultant and it was a gathering of other consultants to build social networks. We were at a sports bar and watching a football game. It was extremely loud, so few of us could actually hear each other fully. I'm particularly bad at separating sounds from each other (my mother is as well), so I find myself usually spending my time nodding and pretending like I understood so that I do not have to annoy them with them having to repeat themselves.
Where I live, there are not a lot of people from other countries. A person from Armenia introduced himself to us. I could not tell where he was from at the time, though. He looked like he was from another country -- I'd guess Brazil, since I'm not worldly -- and I could not hear him well enough to discern an accent. He sat down next to me and talked a little bit. He decided to get up and get a drink. "I'm getting a drink," he said. "Would you like one?" "No thanks, I answered." He went to get his "drink" and came back with a full glass of water. It had no ice, which was unusual compared to the other people's glasses of waters, and it was enough to derail my thinking. I realized it was water, but in a foolish attempt at humor, I asked, "Is that a whole glass of Vodka?" After all, Vodka is clear, I thought, and I knew it wasn't Vodka, but I thought he'd get the "joke" which was funny to me at the time, but of course entirely stupid to me now that I have mental clock cycles free to consider it.
He looked at me funny and responded in a now obvious and thick Russian accent, "Nope. Do you like Vodka?" I was surprised by his reaction. "My friend drinks a lot of Vodka," I responded, trying to think of something to say, but only coming out with stupid things. It got worse. "You know, you can drink that at work and nobody would know because they can't smell it on their breath. I had a teacher who did that once in school who got fired for doing that." The last part is true, but a strange thing to say, of course. I paused, knowing that I just now might have sounded like I drink at work. It was not completely lost on me AFTER I said these things what implications they had. "Not that I would ever do that at work myself, of course." Yeah, that certainly doesn't help things. Doubtless, I was turning red. I knew I had to say something, but everything coming out of my mouth was idiotic. I knew it, but there was no TIME to come up with anything else and I felt pressured to say something. He gave me a dirty look and walked away.
After that encounter, I stared at the TV watching the football game, my heart clenched and face burning. I was worried about what I said and depressed about how I had to go out in public and why does this always happen to me and I tried to keep this off my face. He came back and sat across from me and stared at me while I was staring at the television. As hard as I tried to hide my humiliation, I think he knew. I finally tried to fix the situation and asked him where he was from. When he remarked that he was from Armenia and that it was formerly part of the Soviet Union, I paused and said that I hope he wasn't offended by the Vodka joke. I didn't know. He responded well to that and the situation was dropped.
However, as usual, I now am a little bit more afraid of going out in public and talking to people; a fear that has compounded itself over 35 years. I am embarrassed even to admit that this happened on here where I think most people will empathize. My buddy, who is the opposite of a person with AS, stopped me before I even admitted what I said as I was telling him the story. "You didn't..." he said. I asked him, "What? What is the worst thing in your mind you think I could have possibly said?" "You said he had Vodka in his glass." Sure enough! The NT laughed his head off at the irony. "This is like a setup. This kind of thing only happens on sit-coms."
Or to me, often. I admitted I felt that it is like I had a demon that would look around and put just the wrong things into my head to torture me when I'm off-guard. I never know what to say and I wish I could be mute, but I'm always getting pressured into saying something when I just want to sit in the back and be alone.
31 Oct 2007, 5:03 pm
