Hi. I'm John.
Aspergers? Maybe.
I'm different, sure, but that included a high IQ.
Maybe that's the norm here, I don't know.
I learned how to talk to people, and how to keep
certain thoughts from being spoken. Move quick,
go for a laugh. They think of me as "different."
I get curious about something, I suck up everything I can about it.
I asked the waiter what the dosa was made of in an Indian restaurant.
He did not answer satisfactorily. Two days later I was making my own
from scratch. Bruce Lee as Kato in the Green Lantern got me interested
in karate (yes I am that old, just hit 60) and 30 years of training in various arts
later I'm still teaching tai chi, and studying it. I don't like teaching but it
forces me to keep studying. I worry about what every person is thinking about
me so I have to stay ahead, have to have the answers, because, guess what,
I always need to be right. Yet I can't learn electronics despite how much I would
like to wire that stuff up. I bought the kits from Radio Shack but when they pass the
point that I still remember from grade school, that part with the battery, the switch,
and the light bulb I stop grasping it. Resistors and condensers do something but
it won't get into my head.
I've got a wife and 3 boys, the youngest has just left for college. I realize that
it's gotten harder to communicate with them as they have become adults.
I thought I did the father thing pretty well, I was the primary parent, stay at home dad,
married to a driven retail executive. But contacting them as adults when they are not here is
not easy to do, just like any other phone call. I dislike making phone calls.
I don't stay in touch with people, I don't really know how. I mean just call them up, right?
My wife does it constantly. Why can't I?
I used to be afraid of everyone. After a lifetime of martial arts, well, that's gone.
When you reach a point where the thought of physical conflict includes having to deal with
possibly killing the other guy, it stops being an option and oddly fear disappears.
So why am I still so worried about what they think?
Never could hold a job. Even if I did a good job I couldn't fit in. My interests don't synch.
I don't know what to say. Always got fired. So I'm self employed in a business requiring
minimal social contact and high accuracy. The minimal social contact is like, uhh,
taking the train to Manhattan, meeting them for a great dinner and lots of drinking,
and having a executive limo take me home after. Sounds great right? How come I avoid it?
I like the people, we barely mention business, I enjoy great food and getting hammered and
they pay for it all.
A house in the suburbs, a wife who loves me and makes money like a machine, kids in
college and beyond, my own business. I don't have any behavioral quirks, odd mannerisms,
I don't talk funny. I can't tell left from right. I don't handle it well when plans get changed.
I don't know how to form relationships or how to behave in social situations.
When I first heard of Aspergers it seemed like just another BS label to hide behind.
My wife doesn't really believe I have it. I'm different, sure, but.... if I had to call
a friend right now for something, well I've got no one to call.
So I'm here, I'm John, married, newly empty nest, 2 rescued dobies,
not sure if I'm in the right place. Maybe you guys can tell.
02 Sep 2010, 12:26 pm
