Social anxieties

I have absolutely no doubt that there is one aspect of AS that stands out above everything else as being tough to deal with.

I mean... there are good points and bad points to the condition. But this one point actually eclipses everything else. It damages existing relationships and prevents new ones from forming in the first place. It can be almost intolerable when it's at its worst excesses. And it never stops being a nagging doubt, even when it's at its mildest.

I am high functioning. This means that I come across as "normal" most of the time, although people generally perceive me to be "a bit weird". Some people see the creativity and the flexibility in the weirdness and they like it, while others just become wary and back off. Either way - because I'm clearly functioning well and because I'm clearly intelligent, they don't make allowances for the fact that there's a condition that makes regular things to be a bit challenging. And it's social interaction that I find to be MOST challenging.

So... that's where this element comes in... this bit that eclipses everything else. I don't know what constitutes normal behaviour a lot of the time. If I'm with a bunch of friends, I don't know if I'm overstaying my welcome, so I tend to leave the group early to avoid making that mistake. And then, to avoid being too much of a pest, I don't get in touch with them until I'm invited to rejoin the group or attend some other social event. And they don't know I have these doubts, so they might believe the invitation is implicit, so it never comes. It's been suggested that I let them know of my concerns, but that doesn't work either - because then I'm soliciting an invitation and that's even worse. After all, then I start worrying that I've only been invited because I made it uncomfortable and difficult for them to exclude me.

This can actually be socially crippling.

So I tend to put forward a strong persona. One that I can hide behind. It's not a lie - it's an extension of my genuine personality and although details may be exaggerated, there's nothing made up. It's more like the sensitivities and the subtleties are played down a bit. I think this is so that I can convince myself that any rejection - whether perceived or otherwise - isn't really that important and doesn't really matter all that much.

I try not to let people get too close. I try not to let them get past my defences. I try to keep them at arm's length. And then, occasionally, someone does get close and I love it. I let them in, wholeheartedly and without reservation. I become enamoured and fascinated and want to spend as much time as possible with that person. I want to find out everything and exchange all my fantasies and discover all the common ground and share our plans and find out if it's possible to bring those plans together.

And then, inevitably, the self-doubt creeps in. Am I being a pest? Am I getting too much in the person's face? Should I back off a bit and let that person have some space? Am I just being too full-on? Am I imposing myself too much and just getting to be a little bit creepy?

The recurring issue - and the one I have most trouble with - is striking a balance between being too full-on (and therefore generally wearing people down) or too distant (and therefore alienating them). This can translate to all sorts of comparisons. It's like being needy versus being aloof. Or, when hanging around at a friend's house, it's like outstaying my welcome versus leaving too early when there's still plenty fun to be had. Spotting the differences and identifying the moderate approach can be very difficult.

I see my nephew having similar problems. Not because he's AS, but because he's a teenager - but the comparison is there. I have to point out to him when he's taking a joke too far, for example. Just because something starts out funny, doesn't mean it's still funny ten minutes later. And I always hope that people are prepared to let me know when I've gone too far with something, too.

Everything's going to be fine. I know that. I'm aware that I have AS and that has a tendency to bring on repetitive thinking patterns - which can lead on to obsessive thinking patterns - which can lead on to a tendency to absolutely scrutinise things and become paranoid as a result. I just need to get self-doubts under control and keep some confidence in what I have. I live with the condition. It doesn't have to rule me.

How not to be a stalker

I don't want to go giving out actual names this time, because there are privacy issues, but I'll use initial letters of names instead.

I met E online in the late '90s and she became a very good friend. We really seemed to care for each other a lot. We had long 'phone calls some nights, although these were rare because neither of us could afford the bills.

She got pregnant in (she said) a one-night-stand. I tried to be supportive throughout the pregnancy, because she said she was on her own and she really seemed to rely on what little moral support could be provided by a 'phone line and an internet connection. She would sometimes call me up in the middle of the night - this being a pre-arranged message. If the 'phone rang and then rung off, I would go to the internet and talk to her. It was a message like that, that let me talk to her on the night her dad died.

I started to work on raising some money to get a plane ticket to fly out there, because I really wanted to be there in time for the birth and to meet my friend for the first time. I had just about managed to raise the cash and was just a day away from booking the flight, when I got an email from her. It was bitter and angry. It listed all my faults - every last one of them - and threw in a few extra just to make sure all the ground had been covered. I was actually pretty shocked. In fact, I reacted with a typical AS manner and sort of shut down a bit. I sat in the middle of my room for a few hours while it got darker and darker and didn't move for a long, long time.

Later, I got very concerned about her and the baby, so I tried calling her. A man answered, told me not to call her again and hung up on me. A fresh shock. I tried to email her because I was very concerned about the identity of this man. It was him who answered my email and he essentially gave me the very same message to back off. And now, suddenly, the only two avenues of communication between my friend and I were closed to me - they'd been infiltrated by this strange man. Who was he?

I fretted about this for days and couldn't settle down. Eventually, I resorted to subterfuge and stalker tactics. I got a female friend to call her. This friend pretended to be another friend to the both E and I - one who was deaf and clearly couldn't make a 'phone call. She got the man, spoke to him for a couple of minutes and then told me she could hear E and a baby in the background. So... OK... I accepted I was going to get no more contact and no more information. Unless E responded to the fact that it was clearly me who was behind the call.

Which she duly did. For the first time in a fortnight, I got an email from E. It was very angry. She told me she wasn't stupid and she knew it was me who had been behind the 'phone call. She asked how I could have hoped to get away with such a stupid trick. She said I should never have gone snooping for information on her in such a devious way and she told me she felt violated by my actions. And she told me that if I had just been patient, she would have got in touch with me when she was ready.

Since I had read the email as soon as it had been sent, I wrote back right away. I said I hadn't expected to get away with what I had done. The use of our friend's name had been a sort of message to her. I told her about the man's messages to me. I explained how this meant that I had no other way of getting in touch with her. And I told her how this meant that I had no guarantee - given her last message to me - that I was ever going to hear from her again. I explained that I had become concerned for her safety. And I said that I would never have done this if I had not cared for so much for my friend.

Yeah, I know - classic stalker justification. I'm cringing even as I write it.

Anyway, she sort of softened after that. She identified the man as S - an ex-boyfriend who had returned to help her out. He had apparently been over-protective. (Actually, I had heard about him before - he had also been abusive.) We started talking again. However, it just wasn't the same any more. There was animosity and bitterness now, where there had once been comfort and closeness. And the animosity wasn't coming from her - it was coming from me. It took me a while to recognise it for what it was, but eventually I realised I just didn't trust her any more. I felt like she'd gutted me and I knew that if she'd done it once, then she might well do it again. Also... even worse... I felt that her actions hadn't been those of a proper friend and now there was resentment there as well.

(When I attended some classes on AS last year, we were told that people on the spectrum often have rigid definitions of what constitutes a friend. Break the code and that person can never be a friend again. For some people, the rules are more rigid than others, but it always seems to be there. Now, I didn't know I had Asperger's when I knew E, so I wasn't aware of any of this. But when I learned all that stuff, it was her that I was thinking about and I knew that our friendship hit the profile that was being described in this class.)

There were clues that I just wasn't picking up on at the time. At one point, E and I seemed to be getting on again and were having a 'phone conversation, but she got disconnected. I tried calling her back, but S answered. He told me that if I ever called his house again "at this time of night", then he was going to send some leg breakers to my house. He knew where I lived and he had friends in Ireland who would be only too happy to help out. I liked this man even less than ever, but kept calm. I said "OK", I waited until he had finished talking and then when he was satisfied he had delivered his message, we hung up. In hindsight, I suspect that S hadn't known I was still talking to E and had returned home in the middle of our conversation. She had hung up, I had called back and he had answered; under the impression that I had just spontaneously called up.

Round about this time, my little sister was dealing with some stuff. Bad stuff. She came out of the closet to me, then to the rest of the family. That was cool. But then she started talking about other stuff and then she had a suicide attempt. Now, it's unusual for me to feel the need to look for any support, but perhaps I was feeling a bit off-balance in general at this point, because I tried to talk about it during one memorable conversation with E. She told me I was depressing her and asked me to change the subject. This was so breathtakingly heartless that I was astonished. I no longer recognised this person.

We limped painfully along a little longer, but then one day she just stopped writing. I wrote more emails, but they were ignored. I left a couple of messages on her answering machine, but they were ignored. Weeks and - I'm not exaggerating - months passed. Nothing. My attempts at contact started to dwindle, but I wasn't able to rest. I felt sick. One night, I did the most monumentally stupid thing.

I got the number of a local police station and asked them to go to her house and see if she was OK. They did and when I called them again a few hours later and got a very cold response. The gist of what I was told... E and S were happy with each other, but I was a malevolent little presence in the background who was not accepting that I had no place there. E had been asked if she wanted to press charges against me, but had declined.

And that was it. Until...

In a postscript to the story, last year - seven years on from then - I thought I would try to mend some bridges and I sent an email to E in the hopes that we could talk again. And, in fact, it actually seemed to be going well for a while. We had a couple of differences of opinion about a couple of issues and she called me a hypocrite at one point. But on the whole, we were polite and civil with each other. She claimed to feel guilty about her previous actions and she told me there had been times when she really had felt like she could have used my emotional support during certain events. I told her I felt bad about being such a stalker, but... to be honest... I felt like I had no other choice. I couldn't never have simply let it all go without knowing if she was safe or not. Sending the police to her home had been a desperate attempt to find out if she was OK.

I started to hope that I might actually get my friend back. We were talking and that was a start. We were ironing out our differences and if I had to compromise and accept that she thought I was a hypocrite, then fine... I could do that. We spoke about the point where I tried to talk about my little sister and she told me that she was in a seriously black mood at that point and had been contemplating suicide, so my own crisis had been ill-timed. I realised that things had been bad for her, but I didn't realise that they were that bad.

(On a side note - people with AS are often said to have no sense of empathy. This is not true. My empathic skills are almost cripplingly high, sometimes, so I have to actually try to disconnect myself from them in order to protect myself. So... a disconnected empathy versus none at all... sounds like pretty much the same thing, I suppose. And I'm not really sure what the difference is. What I don't have, though, is much of a sense of sensitivity. So if I appear to be oblivious to another person's suffering, it's because I often am oblivious. This, however, is not the same as empathy.)

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to learn that she was still married to and living with S.  I remembered something she had told me about him - something that some people would consider to be strong enough grounds to end a relationship, press assault charges and impose a restraining order.  And I reminded her about it.  "Didn't he try to strangle you once?" I asked.  "Yes, but he stopped when I kicked him in the balls," she said.  So that's all right, then.

I've got to point out that on the whole, she seemed well-balanced, intelligent and articulate.  This posting in general - and that last paragraph in particular - make her sound like a very different person.  I saw the occasional moment of spite in her, while we were still friends, but that was fairly rare when things were going well.  When they started to deteriorate, however, they became much more frequent.  But I always remembered the intelligent, funny, clever person that I had become friends with and that was the person I really wanted to talk to again.

We spoke, after a while, about friends. This came about as part of an ongoing conversation running through a few emails about how we were being very polite with each other, but that was about it. And I think this is where I made my big mistake. I gave her my proper definition of "friendship".

As far as I'm concerned, there are people I know that I like. But I don't generally use the word "friend" in reference to them. I'm more comfortable using words like mates, or buddies, or pals. Or if I do use the word friend casually, I'll preface it with another word. As in "internet friends". More relaxed and comfortable terms. If I call someone a friend, however, that's a more serious term. One that's been earned in some vaguely defined way. It's hard to become my friend and easy to stop being one. "Friend" is not a casual word for me - it comes loaded with lots of other assumptions.

I said all this in the spirit of being open, being honest and not being a hypocrite. I told her that there was a time I considered us to be friends. I said we weren't friends any more... not right at this moment. And I said that unless we could progress beyond these occasional emails and actually talk on the 'phone again, or on Skype... unless we could actually laugh together again and be comfortable again... unless all of that, then we weren't going to be friends again in the true sense.

I got an email from her very shortly after that. It was in October of last year and it was just one line that I can quote verbatim from memory. She said "Do not email me again."

And that's the last I heard from her.

Parties... and cold exteriors

I'm very skinny - although I generally prefer to use the word "athletic" because it sounds better. I'm also very tall, so I look even skinnier. And I know that I'm underweight for my height. In fact, my weight and my waist size haven't changed since I was about thirteen.

I don't think I'm bad for it, though. I'm not scrawny, exactly. I'm rangy. And I have good abs. I was at a party a couple of nights ago and a friend stepped up behind me and - in a playfully camp gesture - put his arms round me. He's a funny guy. Then he sort of exclaimed in surprise and commented on how "tight" my abs were. I nodded modestly, slapped my stomach and agreed.

I don't deserve this build. I didn't do a lot of exercise before my car accident and I do even less, now. I do a lot of walking, though. I mean a LOT of walking. But I don't run or jog or lift weights. I have a very fast metabolism and I think that's what's responsible for my build.

Anyway, I was at a different party one time and a girl - a junkie - cornered me and started talking about how skinny I was. It started out slightly irritating, but quickly degenerated into actually being offensive. She told me - over and over again - about how she knew all about eating disorders and it was clear that she was making a specific point. When I didn't acknowledge it, she finally openly told me that I was clearly anorexic.

I'd ignored all her hints, but protested when it was a direct challenge. My protests were brushed aside, though; she simply started challenging me to tell her exactly what I'd eaten that day and the day before. I was actually being interrogated about my eating habits by this girl who barely even had the intellectual capacity required to carry on the conversation.

I had no intention of justifying myself to her. Answering one question merely led to that answer being scrutinised for flaws and then a fresh question being presented. So after a while, I started refusing to answer. But she interpreted my frustration as being evasive.

Another complication was that I couldn't actually remember what I'd eaten lately. Ask me anything like that and I will have to pause for a couple of minutes to think back. This is one of the ways in which AS affects me. My memory is exceptionally unreliable. At that time, though, I didn't know I had AS, so couldn't give an adequate reason for my faulty memory - and so this girl just assumed I was making things up.

All attempts extricate myself from this interrogation - and it WAS an interrogation - just had her pressing her point further. I started off polite, then let my irritation show, then became downright rude - and still she wouldn't let it go. Finally, she returned to the question of what I'd eaten the day before and actually demanded answers. She said I needed help and she was determined to make me face up to that. This fucking junkie was getting in my face and telling me I had problems.

By now, I was getting angry enough that other people in the room were becoming aware of the conversation. My friend started making jokes at my expense, while the host looked at me and told me to "fucking chill out". I was ready to leave - to actually storm out of the party - but I had promised my friend I would see her home and she clearly had no intention of leaving. So now I was mad at her and at the host as well as the haggard little troll who had cornered me.

The bitch finally decided that maybe she'd pressed me too hard and tried to shake my hand. Now, it'll take a lot to get me to be so blatantly full-on rude as this, but I publicly and openly rejected her peace offer - there was no way I was going to shake her hand. But her whining, nasal Ned tone wheedled away at me while a couple of people started talking about how childish I was being - despite having missed the entirety of her conversation until then - and eventually I buckled and accepted her clammy handshake with poor grace.

And almost immediately she started explaining - in true Ned style - exactly why she had come to that anorexia conclusion in the first place. And since the attention of the room had drifted away from us in that moment, I suddenly had her full and undivided attention once more. And within about five minutes, I realised I was still having to justify my physique to her.

I can't stand to be cornered. I can't stand to be interrogated. Nobody enjoys these moments, but I was actually seething in rage by this point and eventually I just withdrew. I stopped answering, I stopped responding and I just became very still. She spoke, she wheedled, she questioned, she whined and she protested. But I was simply no longer part of the conversation.

My friend has told me that I'm very aloof and condescending, sometimes. She says it doesn't take much for me to become absolutely inscrutable. I present a blank face - a sort of glacial exterior that really intimidates people. Sometimes - like at this party - it's intentional. A form of defence. But apparently I do it at other times, too. When people irritate me, the eyes go cold and the jaw sets and I actually become like a different person.

To be honest, I'm pretty sure my friend exaggerates this. She has occasionally had her own agenda when she's felt the need to point out my flaws, so I'm not sure how reliable her opinion is. I have, however, seen people flinch on occasion when they've said the wrong thing and then spotted my response. It's rare... but it does happen.

I might need to return to this post and edit it, later... I'm not sure how much sense I'm making.

Family issues: My dad

When I told my dad I had Asperger's Syndrome, I was terrified.  I had no idea how he'd respond to this news.  It was entirely conceivable that he'd dismiss it as something he didn't understand, which would segue into something he had a hostile reaction to.  This would segue into a hostile reaction to my own perceived gullibility for accepting the diagnosis and could have dissolved into a long, drawn out monologue which would only occasionally touch on the relevant issues, but would still contain the implicit opinion that I was gullible.  Or an idiot.  Or maybe even something else entirely.

Instead, he asked how it was going to be cured.  I told him it wasn't.  And this was accepted and filed away and never referred to again.  Months later, he and I were watching something on TV - a news article about a man who was some sort of piano prodigy.  The man sat at his piano and his studio audience called out suggestions for bits of music to play on the piano and he took their suggestions and played them.  Between suggestions, he sort of rocked a bit in his chair.

Suddenly, my dad said he thought the guy had autism.  We had both missed the beginning of the news item, so didn't know anything about this man.  We had no idea of the context of this story.  But I was surprised by his insight.  I knew nothing about the man on the TV, but had to immediately admit that some of the traits the man displayed were autistic traits.  Whether he had autism or Asperger's Syndrome or anything like that was pretty irrelevant, though.  What mattered to me in that moment, was that my dad had actually taken some steps towards finding out what I had meant when I had told him I had Asperger's.

It didn't matter how he'd taken those steps.  What's most likely is that he paid attention when someone at work discussed the condition.  It didn't even matter whether what he'd "learned" as a result of taking the steps was accurate or not.  It only mattered - to me - that he'd taken the steps at all.

My dad had an accident, when he worked in the forestry commission.  A tree fell on him.  It damaged his liver and this makes it hard for him to metabolise alcohol, which means he gets drunk very quickly.  And he's not a good drunk.  In fact, it would be more accurate to say that he can be a pretty mean drunk.  And since he can be pretty mean when he's sober, that's saying something.

About two hours ago, he had a can of Stella.  Since then, he's had two more cans and some brandy.  Now, I tend to watch what he's drinking and - if I'm joining him in a drink - take steps to make sure that I'm not left alone with him when he crosses the line between relatively sober and relatively drunk.

The thing is, there's different types of drunk and he can fit in every single one of them in a very short space of time.  Which means that I have to be aware of the kind that he's currently inhabiting at all stages of the process.  And if I see him edging into any of the "bad" areas, I have to start thinking about how to facilitate my departure.

I've had the same amount of alcohol as him, tonight.  Not because I absolutely had to, but because he took steps that made my refusal a bit awkward, so it was easier to just accept the drinks he offered.  And I feel stone cold sober.  He, on the other hand, has been slurring for the past hour.  I managed to escape to my room eventually, but only through the use of some very careful diplomacy and only at the risk of creating a "scene".   And diplomacy doesn't come naturally to me, so I've had to judge every step with the utmost care.

Tonight, we've spent a good while in the "chatty-but-bordering-on-aggressive-and-(if-I'm-extremely-unlucky)-downright-hostile" personality zone.  One of my least favourites and a particularly common one.

The danger areas kicked in before this, but a convenient starting point would be the news item about the asylum seekers in the boat that was destroyed just off Christmas Island.  He started ranting about "fucking refugees" and I let him rant for a while, because that was safest.  Occasionally, however, his rants would be punctuated by a characteristic stutter that I've come to despise in the last few months.

There will be an exceptionally bigoted statement, followed by a brief pause and then the word "Eh?"  Now, I don't know if this crosses the cultural barrier or not, so I'll explain - that staccato outburst is intended to invite some feedback.  And the only feedback that he desires is approval of his most recent statement.

When that happens, there are limited choices.  I can agree with whatever he said.  Or I can dispute it.  If I choose the latter option, I either have to back up my opinion (according to whatever rules he might arbitrarily impose) or I become trapped into an endless monologue on the subject where he backs up his own opinion.  For hours.  Aggressively.  With frequent changes of direction so that after about thirty minutes, I'm no longer even sure what his current stance is.

I can only make vaguely agreeable and non-confrontational noises before I encounter one of two potential outcomes.  One is that I become too disgusted with my weak stance and feel the need to defend my own opinion and the other is that he recognises my weak stance for exactly what it is.  A patronising and cowardly aversion to arguing with him.  And that can make him aggressive.

So I hit the point where I had to stand my ground.  I went to the toilet and when I came back, he actually rewound the TV to the point where the item started off.  He made comments about how terrible it was, but these comments were intercut with vaguely defined bits of bigotry that made it hard to tell exactly where his sympathies truly lay.  This is a very clever ploy, because it means that however I approach the subject, he can adjust his own stance and move into a contradictory approach automatically.  It would be convenient to say that this is a deliberate and calculated stance, but to be honest, it isn't.  It just means that his comments are ill-informed, ill-defined and based on sheer ignorance - they're shifting with every second.

Eventually, my tolerance ran out and - fuelled by the information that some of the asylum seekers came from Iran - I told him about a book I'd read called Persepolis.  I withheld certain details, because they would have automatically invited derision and dismissal - like the fact that the book was a graphic novel.  Instead, I concentrated on what was relevant.  That the woman who wrote the book (Marjane Satropi) had written about her own life in Iran.  That she was of a similar age to me.  That when I compared my experiences to hers at various points in the narrative, I could barely even conceive of what she'd gone through.  I told him she'd gone to Europe, encountered bigotry and hardship, lived for a while on the streets, returned to the stifling and restrictive lifestyle back in Iran and finally left Iran once more.  I told him about how her mother had made her promise to never return home.  I wanted to make that point clear to him.  Marjane's mother had solicited a promise from her daughter that she would never return.  To her home.

I followed that up with a statement that the people on that boat would never have put themselves in such a position unless they had something they were escaping from that was worth the risks and the hardship.

This is where it gets really frustrating.  This is where his stance starts to shift and change.  This is where he can adjust his perspective in the middle of a sentence.

He agreed with me.  He seemed to be briefly stirred by what I'd said about Marjane Satropi and he started to respond with a story he had heard from a friend of his.

The story kicked off with something vague about a plucky refugee who had fallen on hard times and gradually coalesced into a story about how his friend had encountered a woman sobbing.  His friend (called Alex Salmond, for some reason - he couldn't even make a name up) asked the woman what was wrong.  It turned out she was an asylum seeker and she was locked out of her flat.  If she couldn't get in, she would be deported on the spot.  Alex took her into his place and gave her somewhere to stay.

Now, at this point, the woman was still a plucky refugee and Alex, by default, had become "a nice guy".  This was the kind of tale that fitted the narrative he was currently weaving.  But it was round about then that he started to remember his actual stance about refugees and so the narrative had to change to accommodate this.  Which meant that the woman had to be redefined.

And so it turned out that Alex Salmond (Alex fucking Salmond - even then, I couldn't understand why there wasn't a sober part of his brain that recognised the name and cut in to stop him using it every five minutes) was repaid for his generosity by being brutally betrayed.  One day, someone turned up on his doorstep claiming to be the girl's brother.  Apparently, word had got out that his place was a "safe house" and that any refugee could turn up there and get shelter.  Also, the girl had found one of Alex Salmond's credit cards and used it to run up £30,000 of debt.

Now, in a rational conversation with anyone else, I could have picked a hundred holes in the story.

Where did this credit card come from?  How could so much debt be suddenly charged to it before anyone noticed anything wrong?  Was Alex Salmond definitely responsible for it, or could credit card fraud be proved?  Why would this woman put out his address as a "safe house" simply because she got offered some hospitality?  What did "safe house" even mean?  Who would be stupid or desperate enough to claim refuge at a place based on such flimsy evidence as the fact that a man had offered a safe place for a woman?

The problem is that every one of those holes could be filled by someone who is skilled enough at bluster.  Throw in a few half truths and enough confidence and the argument is overturned.  And don't forget that you're up against someone who will simply override any objection you might have with a fresh wave of bluster and a whole new story (complete with a fresh set of holes) to back up this change of direction.  And over the top of it all, there's this attitude - never fully stated, but always implied - that you're an arsehole for questioning him at all.

Seriously... about a year ago, I had the temerity to say something about electric cars and the conversation that resulted from that lasted for three hours and almost reduced me to tears of frustration.  I mean that literally, by the way.  And I know what "literally" genuinely means.

All I could do was wait out his monologue (and it was a monologue by this point) to run its course and then hope that I'd laid enough groundwork to help me retreat.  I'd become trapped by a full can of beer and a full glass of brandy.  The can had been opened and the brandy had been poured and both would have to be drunk before I could conceivably escape with the absolute minimum of debate.  So I listened to his stories and made it known (with a great deal of subtlety) that it was going to be bedtime for me, pretty soon.

And then, suddenly, he picked up the bottle of Hennessy that he hadn't opened yet.  He offered me a glass.  I turned it down.  He insisted.  I said I was tired and it was bedtime.  He pointed out that it was a freshly opened bottle.  I acknowledged that.  Did I really not want to try this freshly opened bottle?  And by the time we'd finished this bit of verbal sparring, I'd been manoeuvred to the point where continuing to turn it down would have made it apparent that I was deliberately rejecting his hospitality and generosity.  So I had my glass refreshed and was trapped for that bit longer.

I've been a real prick, though.  In that rant, I've spent a long time describing how much difficult it is living with my dad.  And it is difficult; I'm not going to withdraw any of that.  Everything I've said here is true.  But it's not fair to leave it at that.

I should point out that my dad is the hardest working man I've ever known.  That's not hyperbole - it's the literal, honest truth.  He's always been around, he's always grafted, he's always got up at 6AM and headed out to work on farms or on the roads, or do whatever had been necessary to bring in a wage and support his family.  I think it's how he defines himself.  "I work - that's what I do."  Something like that.  He is not a complicated man - but he has a complicated son.  And that's where the difficulties rise.

He doesn't understand me.  I confuse him.  And that's always been the case.  For most of my life, I've been scared of him and tried to take steps to make sure my time with him has been kept to an absolute minimum.  And he's recognised that and set out to counter it.  So if he wanted to do some work on a car, I had to help him.  It didn't matter that I had a sister who was more mechanically minded than me and more motivated to help him - that was my job and it was the mould that he felt I should fit.  And he tried to shape me to it.  And I responded to his efforts with fear and reluctance.

The thing is, I would withdraw.  I'd become sullen, resentful and... well, imagine most negative teenage characteristics and I probably embodied those from a very early age.  His response would be a simple one and based on his own childhood experiences - these negative characteristics needed to be knocked out of me.  In this case, I'm  not imposing any judgement on him; I'm simply acknowledging that there was a process of action and reaction going on that was very damaging all round.  In short - we damaged each other almost constantly, and it's only in the last year or so that I've started to recognise that.

And this instalment has become overwhelmingly negative.  And I don't like that.  It's really bothering me, in fact.  I can't delete it, because that's not right - to do so would be to deny things that really shouldn't be denied.  And to do so would make this narrative incomplete.  There would be a major hole that really defines my life in a very big way.  Nobody, after all, has had a bigger impact on me than my dad.  So how do I proceed with it?

The good thing is that the last year has provided an advancement in my relationship with him.  I hate to use the term "bonded", but there's been a very definite element of that going on.  In the last year, following the car accident, I've had to move back in with my parents and I've had to deal with the same things that I had so much trouble with when I was younger.  The difference has been my attitude and my way of responding to the personality conflicts.

My dad is not a complicated man - I mentioned that before.  So when adversity would make me withdraw, he would interpret my response as sulking.  This was a "bad attitude".  Therefore punishable.  Ironically, however, I now have a more complicated range of responses to draw on and I've managed to identify the ones that are most likely to defuse a dangerous situation.  I have jokes, quips and responses available.  OK, so there have been times when these responses have made a bad situation even worse (that's always the risk) but there have been a lot of times when they've disarmed him.  I've actually seen the look on his face where he has had to decide whether to see the funny side or not - and chosen to do so, because the alternative is simply too difficult.  It's not that I don't confuse him any more.  It's the fact that now he can avoid the confusion because the sarcasm gives him an alternative response.

We've also discovered some common ground.  Sadly, that ground is alcoholic in nature, and this means that I've become concerned about my own intake in recent months, but it's still cool to be able to share something.  Independently of each other, we have both discovered Leffe - a Belgian beer that is the best stuff you can possibly drink.  It's expensive, though - so not a common drink.  So when the occasional bottle comes out, it's met with extreme approval all round.  The Leffe glasses are produced, the beer is poured very carefully and it's a taste that we very definitely share.  Years from now - decades from now - Leffe is going to be connected with the most positive memories of my dad.

I have to write this next bit with some degree of surprise.  I have somehow - in that last paragraph - invested a fair degree of emotion and sentimentality in that drink.  I suddenly realised, in one moment, just how accurate the last line is and for a moment, I actually had to cope with a powerful emotional response.

Apart from Leffe, our taste in lagers and beers only vaguely coincide, and that's largely because I'm not too fussy about them.  So the next area where we really connect is with brandies and whiskies.  And that generally means the more expensive the better.  In this last year, there's been a huge amount of occasions where he's produced some bottle or another and poured me a glass.  It pleases him when I taste a good one and react with approval and then we'll "share a moment" and talk about how smooth it is.  And it amuses him when he produces a cheap one and he sees the reaction to that instead.

Incidentally, even he's aware of the Jekyll and Hyde response he can have to whisky - that's the worst of the lot with him - so although we touch on that occasionally, it tends to be brandy that we share.  And one year, about seven years back, I was in a shop just a couple of days before his birthday, trying to decide between two bottles of brandy that I wanted to buy for him.

I was very low on cash.  I could have opted for the one which would have left me with a little bit of pocket money, or I could have gone for the more expensive option.  My girlfriend at the time - Jenn - suggested that perhaps there wasn't that much difference in the quality, but I just didn't know.  I couldn't help thinking that there was a reason for the £10 price difference.  And in the end, I spent every penny on the better option.  When I gave it to him, he opened it right away and poured two glasses.  And it was smooth.  And I knew I'd made a good choice.

Nearly a year later, the following Hogmanay, I bought a bottle of the other stuff, tasted it and knew - without a doubt - that I'd made the right decision.  Fucking paintstripper.

Tactile issues and massage therapy

I studied massage therapy at James Watt College in Greenock for about 15 months, before quitting the course.  I've been to college three times before, and I've dropped out each time at around about the same point.  It's when there are too many changes to the course and I can't keep up with them, so I start dropping behind in some classes.  Then I skip those classes and fall further behind.  Then it gets to the point where I realise I won't catch up, so I quietly admit defeat and drop out.

I also had problems with the fact that while I wanted to learn Swedish massage and maybe aromatherapy, I wasn't really interested in most of the rest of the classes.  I understood the logic of anatomy & physiology, health & safety, the integumentary system, cardio-vascular system and all those other semi-medical classes, so I enjoyed those too.  But reflexology?  Messing around with peoples' feet because that MIGHT be having an effect on the other systems of their body?  I just wasn't interested.

I resented the fact that if I didn't pass every class, then I wouldn't pass the course.  And that included those I had no interest in, would never use again and would not benefit me in the slightest.

So I quit.  And a friend recommended that I study privately instead.  I tried to get funding, but failed, so paid for the course out of my unemployment benefit instead.  The course fees took up a huge chunk of my income, so I was reduced to living off beans on toast for nine months, while I concentrated solely on Swedish massage - a course that also covered all the physiological elements that were relevant.

I passed, because I understood what I needed to know at every step of the course.  One weekend per month over nine months, we concentrated on a specific system of the body, while still taking in the skeletal and muscular stuff and while still learning how to give a good massage.  At home, we knew what stuff to brush up on and we were encouraged to use friends and family as private case studies.  I had two posters on the wall by my PC - one showing the skeletal system and one showing the muscular system.  They were covered in post-it notes concentrating on about forty specific muscles and included (in anatomical terms) their origins, insertion points and actions.  I learned how to map out a broad and simplified version of the cardio-vascular system and would draw it out repeatedly until I could do it from memory alone.  What was very complicated at college, became a lot easier on this course.

After that, I went onto a different course and learned Acupressure Therapy.  This was a more specialised form of massage that was designed to be taken into the office environment.  The client could sit in a specially designed chair and the therapist could get to work on that person's neck, back and shoulders.  The client remained fully dressed and no oils were used.  For me - as a male therapist - this was perfect.  There was no major need for privacy, the massages were delivered right out in the open and the client didn't feel vulnerable.

I got a job at Glasgow airport, where I developed my technique, then moved on to work at a clinic in Glasgow.  I worked there for about three years.  The business was owned by Nicola - a friend of mine - and we worked incredibly hard there to try and develop it.  I routinely worked for a minimum of 60 hours every week.  There were days when I had to both open and close the place, so I'd get up in the morning, take more than an hour to travel to Glasgow, open the shutters, get inside, clean the place, get it open by 9AM, work all day, then close up at 8PM and return home.

Not every day was like that.  On other days, Nicola and I would travel in together, so I could sleep a bit later.  She often commented that she couldn't understand why I wasn't exhausted and at the time we put that down to the fact that I have a very high metabolism.  I still believe that was a strong element, but since I found out that I have Asperger's Syndrome, I also learned that this is one of the things that people with the condition tend to experience.  Being focused on the job and having distractions would mean that I wasn't always aware of how they were affecting my physically.  Just because I didn't FEEL tired didn't mean that I was as inexhaustible as I appeared to be.  In fact, when I would get home, I'd usually have time to get myself something to eat, watch TV for an hour and then practically collapse into bed.  And get up the following day to do the same thing again.

It seems that people on the autistic scale aren't always the best judges of how they're feeling.  OK... so I covered tiredness there, because it was directly applicable to me as a result of that job.  But I've also experienced times when I've sat down at my PC to write something, or work on a piece of art, or even just play a game - and them become so focused on what I'm doing that hours can go by without me really being aware of it.  I won't notice time passing, or the room getting colder and darker, or the fact that I'm getting hungry.  I couldn't even estimate the amount of times where I've sat back from the screen and actually felt like I'm just waking up - and then trying to remember when I last ate.  Usually the answer to that one would be that I HADN'T eaten that day.  And I'd suddenly realise that I was cold, hungry and thirsty.

Not tired, though.  This is complicated by that metabolism thing again, but I hardly ever get properly tired.  I seldom have proper sleep patterns and I hate going to bed.  It just seems like an incredible waste of time and I can always find something to distract me or some reason to delay the moment where I turn in.  Unless, of course, I'm working as a massage therapist for 60 hours a week.

One thing I love (and it happens rarely) is that feeling of sheer, physical and mental exhaustion that actually means that my bed is something to be welcomed.  That sensation where even just stripping off is an exertion that feels like a strain on overstretched physical resources.  And that sensation of sheer bliss as I drag the blankets over myself.  When I'm pushed to that level, then my bed becomes the most welcome and welcoming possible place.

Back to massage therapy, though - I seem to have drifted away from the subject.

I used to find it intriguing that I was the least tactile massage therapist I had ever met.  I've never been the kind of person to go about initiating physical contact.  It's not that I have a problem with it, like a lot of people on the autistic scale - it's more like I've never really been sure of the rules of physical contact, so I've never been sure how it would be perceived if I DID initiate it.  Handshakes have usually been fine, but even then I can get a bit over analytical.  In any given situation, I'll find myself thinking about whether offering my hand to someone is going to be an appropriate or welcome gesture.

So when I first started training as a massage therapist, I found myself thinking about this.  I had chosen a career option where I was going to HAVE to touch people.  It was a necessary and intrinsic part of this chosen vocation.  But... there were rules governing it.  It was sanctioned contact.  So perhaps I'd chosen this job as a means of receiving tactile contact as well as giving it.

At the airport - and then at the clinic - I had a lot of loyal clients who kept returning specifically for me.  It's a really good feeling to look up and see familiar faces coming back because they appreciated what I'd done to them on previous visits.

(Please note that the following anecdotes will - in no way - compromise any client confidentiality issues, because no names are going to be given and there will not be enough personal information that could result in anyone identifying them.)

I was just about to close the shutter on the clinic one day, when someone turned up and she looked so incredibly disappointed that she'd missed her opportunity for a massage, that I couldn't just turn her away.  I missed my train, but I still invited her in.  She was an intriguing person; she never spoke much and I never really felt like I could find anything in her back that particularly needed working on, but she clearly disagreed because she would turn up on an average of twice a week.  She was a very shy person and I suspect that she came back because there was a tactile element that she wasn't experiencing elsewhere.

At the airport, a girl came through on a business trip one day and had a massage.  Nothing particularly special about that, but she came back through the following day on her return journey and this time I found something wrong with her neck.  A big lump on the right hand side.  I knew it hadn't been there the day before, so I was immediately concerned.  I explored it nervously and came to the tentative conclusion that it was a rotated vertebrae.  After a moment I mentioned it to her and she instantly agreed.  It was the recurring consequence of an old horse riding accident and often presented itself when she slept in a strange bed.  And it always resulted in blinding headaches.  I didn't go pushing it back into place or anything stupid like that, but as I worked on the muscles round about it, they reasserted themselves and slowly drew it back into its proper position.  I was fascinated by this process - I was witnessing the body actually correcting itself with a bit of outside help.  I never saw her again, so I don't know if she managed to escape the headaches this time, but I like to think she did.

Another regular client at the airport used to enjoy telling me that he appreciated that I could pile on the pressure.  "These little girls," he said once.  "They don't know how to fuckin' do it."  I knew that was wrong, because the little therapist he was referring to could really pile on the pressure; she could practically cripple me.  But he was convinced that a tall, male therapist was automatically stronger so he wasn't going to be convinced.  One day, he came through and told me he'd paid £90 for a massage the previous day.  I was impressed and said that must have been a good massage.  "Well, to be fair," he said.  "It wasn't just a massage."

Again at the airport... a businessman came through and he was seriously angry.  He walked into the massage area and practically spluttered out his story of indignation.  The airport had messed up on a connecting flight and now he was going to have to wait twelve hours and still have to pay extra.  I really felt bad for him; I could empathise with the impotent rage he was clearly feeling.  I let him rant and after a minute or two, when he'd finished telling me the story, he aplogised "for taking it out on me".  I told him that I hadn't felt like he'd done that; he just needed a vent and it wasn't like I was feeling picked on because he wasn't holding me responsible in any way.  Then I gave him a massage.  When I had finished and he sat up, the transformation was incredible.  He was completely blissed out.  In that moment, I really loved my job.

I can't do massage therapy any more - not as a career.  I was in a car accident in early 2009 and was left with long-term whiplash.  Now I can probably work on more than one or two people in a short period, but if I do any more work than that, the whiplash flares up and I'm in a lot of pain all over again so I have to make sure I don't overdo it.

I still do it occasionally, but not in a professional capacity. To keep in practice, or because I know someone could benefit from it. And maybe one day I'll get past this whiplash and get back into it as a career option. Just... not for a good while, yet. 

Mouths

A few years ago, I read a lot of comics. One day, I recognised the work of a specific artist by the way he drew a mouth. The artist was Norm Breyfogle and I developed a liking for his artistic style after that. Then I noticed that I was recognising other artists by the way they drew mouths. Their artistic style could be very distinctive, but it was often the mouths that I noticed first.

A few years later, a friend commented that whenever she spoke to me, if I was concentrating hard, I would focus on her mouth rather than her eyes. She thought it was mildly disconcerting when she first noticed it. I hadn't even realised I did this until she pointed it out.

For a while, it was suggested that I might have some hearing difficulties I hadn't been aware of and that I was subconsciously lip-reading. I checked into this. No... no hearing problems at all, so that's not it.

Early this year, after I got my AS diagnosis, I was told that people on the autistic spectrum often focused specifically on mouths. We have sensory complications at times and so look for any edge we can get. So we watch mouths so as not to miss any nuances in communication.

All this has led me to be very aware of mouths. I have been aware of mouths for a long, long time and can identify specific times in my childhood where I recognised that mouths were different from those I was used to (people from different ethnic or social backgrounds) and was wary or cautious as a result. In art and photography, I focus straight in on them.

I spot the sensual potential in mouths. I spot the potential for cruelty in them. In fact, it's entirely possible that I look to mouths in the same way that other people look to eyes.

So... I might like your mouth a lot. But I might never notice the colour of your eyes. Please don't take it personally.

Confrontation

I'm not good at unexpected confrontation. If something happens unexpectedly and I find myself in a situation I wasn't prepared for, my immediate response is often one of detailed analysis - not reaction. I start to think about what provoked the situation, whether my interpretation of it is accurate, what my response should be... By the time I come up with a response that I think is the correct one, the moment has often passed and it's too late.

Recently, I was in Dusseldorf with my girlfriend, who was Cantonese. We were about to catch a train back to Frankfurt and were a bit early, so we went into a coffee shop. We were sitting at a table, when a young German couple came in and took a table slight to the rear and slightly to the left of us. The guy was behind me, but I could see the girl out of the corner of my eye.

They were talking, while Lucy and I were talking. I had no interest in their conversation. But then they guy said something that cut across our conversation. He didn't raise his voice too much, but it travelled very clearly. He said "Fucking Chinese."

Lucy stayed completely bland and completely serene - a characteristic that I often admired and sometimes found infuriating. She sipped her coffee. I looked at her and said "Was that directed at you?" She shrugged like it didn't matter.

I kept drinking my coffee and thought through the various options.

Should I take issue with the guy on her behalf? I hate doing that - it's offensive and patronising.

Should I stand up and deck the guy? Too caveman. Instantly dismissed.

Should I ignore it? Didn't like that one at all. Made me look like a pussy. Should stand up for my girlfriend. But that leads back to the first option.

This thought process was complicated by other factors I wasn't completely clear on. Was the remark a general part of a general conversation with his girlfriend that had no bearing on or connection to Lucy? What if I stood up and picked a fight and I was completely wrong?

Then the guy was holding his hand in the air and snapping his fingers to catch the attention of the lady at the till. Now, this is something I think is monumentally rude and offensive. Demanding someone's attention in such a way demonstrates that your impression of that person is that they're a minion - a servant who exists merely to do your bidding. It's exerting authority - and, by extension, superiority - over that person. So even if his previous comment had nothing to do with Lucy, he had confirmed himself as being a prick in my opinion.

The girl came over, took care of whatever the situation was and returned to the till. Lucy and I kept drinking our coffees, but the mood was soured for me. I hadn't taken any action at all and I didn't like the fact that I was starting to think of myself as a pussy for not standing up for my girlfriend in the face of a comment that may or may not even have been about her. Although, the chances were good that it was about her.

Then he said it again. And again, it cut across the conversation. And, having been said a second time, I was able to make a clear comparison between this tone and the tone of everything else he had said to his girlfriend. Muted, normal conversation, then occasionally this offensive comment. It was meant to be heard.

I swung round in my seat and looked over at the two of them. She looked up, met my eye and looked away immediately. She was clearly embarrassed and I felt sorry for her. I don't think she was comfortable with this arsehole's company.

He noticed her reaction and swung round in his seat to see what she was looking at. He tried to maintain eye contact, but I stared him down until he crumbled and turned away. After that, I turned back to Lucy. We finished our coffees and left.

Now - like a lot of AS characteristics, I'm not trying to claim that my responses were unique to my condition. There are a lot of NT people out there who would have had a similar crisis to me. They would not have known how to react, so by the time they came to a decision, the moment would have passed for them. But there are plenty more, who would have taken instant action. And in many cases, that action would have been violent or aggressive. The situation would probably have escalated. My action resulted in a standoff that I won, though. I don't claim it was the best action - or even the right one - but I do think that I won a very small victory against a bigoted arsehole.

After we left, it occurred to me - belatedly - that whenever he said "fucking Chinese", he was speaking English. So there was no doubt at all that the comment was directed towards us. He had spoken in a language that we understood, rather than in German. Funny how these things only occur much later.