Conflict resolution

I went to Greenock on Saturday evening.  The plan was to have a few drinks with my cousin, see his kids and generally have a bit of a laugh.

The kids were going to spend the night at their granddad's place, so after seeing them again, we were going to have complete peace.  I was even going to be able to sleep in one of their beds, rather than on the sitting room couch for once.  It was shaping up to be a great night.

And it was great, at first.  Joe, Pauline and I had a laugh, had a few drinks, insulted each other, played a couple of games, watched some TV - all the usual stuff.

And then, at around 2AM, it was just me and Joe.  And that's where it all went wrong.

We got talking about autism.  I can't remember how the subject came about - I think I'd started telling him about the upcoming venture with Kobi from Fixers.  But then, he cut me off and told me that I didn't have autism.  He wouldn't even concede that it was a matter of personal belief or anything like that.  As far as he was concerned, it wasn't an opinion, but a statement of fact.  He had decided that I just don't have the condition, that it was all just a cop-out and that was it.

Actually, "cop-out" was clearly a key term, because he used it three times in the resulting conversation, although I never could figure out what I was supposed to be copping out from.

It went downhill pretty rapidly, at that point.  I was stunned and then defensive and then angry.  I tried describing some of the elements of the condition, but every time I did, he just shrugged and dismissed it.

I spoke about the classically autistic meltdown moments - which are thankfully rare in my case - that happen when I get pressed into a confrontational situation that I can't escape from or resolve.  They're slow-burning situations, where tension is gradually rising and every attempt to defuse it is brushed aside by whoever it is that has me cornered until finally all rational attempts to escape have failed and all that's left is completely irrational.  Rage takes over, I start pounding at my temples with the flats of my hands and then I break something and run away.  I was embarrassed to tell him about these moments, because they feel childish and volatile and ridiculous.  It's only in the last couple of years that I've actually able to acknowledge the fact that I can literally hit myself in rage.  Genuinely, literally, hit myself in the head - violently and repeatedly - so hard that it gives me a headache that can last for ages.  This, I feel, is not the response of a person who has a sane grip on reality during those moments.

He shrugged again, and said "I do that all the time."

Then he started comparing me to the son of a friend of his.  The son "squawks and tweets" all the time, apparently, and that has become Joe's definition of autism.  I don't do that, so I clearly don't have the condition - it's that simple.  I tried to point out that there were lots of features of the condition, but by that point he wasn't even letting me finish any of my sentences or arguments.  He just interrupted and said "you haven't got autism."

I was already very pissed off, by this stage.  But it was his attitude at that point - calm, condescending and smug - that got me angry enough that I had to leave.  By this point, all I needed to do was step outside and walk about for a bit to calm down.  But as soon as I took up my jacket, he grabbed hold of it and told me that he wasn't going to let me leave until I calmed down.

That's not the way to get me to calm down and in fact, it only started to escalate from there.  To be clear, though - the meltdown moment I just described still wasn't exactly imminent.  I wasn't feeling cornered, yet.  If I genuinely hadn't been able to leave, and if I'd genuinely had to deal with this particular conversation - with those condescending one-line put-downs of everything I said in my defence - then it might have happened eventually.  But first there there would have been a lot more warning signs, a clear display of increasing frustration and finally, there would have been a very sudden and very rapid meltdown.

I really wanted to leave, though.  The situation had already become very stressful and I didn't want to be there, any more.  So the fact that he now had a grip on my jacket and was - literally - refusing to let me have it, was narrowing my options down even further.  I paused just for a moment, and he took that opportunity to take hold of it in both hands and I could see that he wasn't messing about.  His knuckles were white.  Before I could take it, I was going to have to prise his hands free and that was going to turn into a fight.  Or some sort of childish scuffle.

I'm running out of ways to describe how every fresh development was actually getting me more outraged all the time, and at this point I genuinely considered punching him right in the face - and that shocked me more than anything else.  I've got no idea how bad a move that would have been.  I know that when we were kids, Joe was always able to come out on top in every single fight we ever had, and I don't know if that's changed, but I don't really want to find out.  So the final option left was just to abandon the jacket and leave without it.

3AM in Greenock is not a good time to find yourself outside in just a t-shirt.

I was halfway along the street, when I heard Joe at the front door calling at me to come back.  I got to the end of the street and sat down on a wall, to calm down.  He called my mobile a few times, texted me a few times and then, after about half an hour, he sent a final text telling me that he'd leave the front door unlocked.  I gave it another hour or so, then got up and walked back to his place.  In my paranoia, I hesitated outside his front door for a few minutes to convince myself that he was definitely not still awake and waiting for me to come back, so we could start the conversation again.

Finally, I went inside and crept into the sitting room.  My jacket was lying on the couch, so I picked it up and put it on, then stepped outside again and left.  I didn't know what to do about the front door, and was concerned about it being unlocked, so I hung around a bit more, but eventually I started walking into town.

I was completely worn out.  From the moment I started wandering the streets of Greenock, it wasn't the argument that was particularly fresh in my mind.  It wasn't the rage or the frustration.  It was a sort of bone-deep exhaustion and all I wanted was to be at home and in my bed.  But I still had to wait four hours for the buses to start running and even then, I knew, the journey home was going to at last at least another three hours.  Despite all that, though, going back to Joe's was never going to be an option I would consider.  Not for one minute.

I haven't heard from Joe since then.