This is one of those things where it just brings to mind the realities of AS and just what a f'd up place we're in. I have an Eharmony account, mostly at the urging of my parents (and I thought "Well, its true I haven't tried it - better to do so and not have the 'what ifs' come back to bite me"). Of course, no different than almost anything else, I always had a few people interested but after two or three messages back and forth the conversations always just seem to fizzle up and correspondence would stop with them just not replying to something.
Well, when I did look around - particularly with anyone I found interesting enough to where I wanted to read a bit of their profile, a huge thing they wanted in a guy is honesty. That's very fair, upfront, and I like that. Someone also went on to say that she thought a person could only truely be honest with someone else when they could be honest with themselves.
This is where my own analysis of that dynamic comes in. I agree with them, they're absolutely right on that stand point. Try to make a connection on false pretenses and its shot. The trouble with having AS, its not ok. We can't be our full selves, and just the mere trying to at least front as well as we can, is a load of false pretense. We're doing what we absolutely HAVE to in order to make it in this world, survive, have enough respect from the people around us to keep the peace and harmony in our lives to the best of our ability. It feels like almost anyone I'm going to meet, especially when I myself seem to have a very strong neurotypical component, its going to be that catch 22; I can't just let go because when I do its not a good thing, if I hold it together they'll see that its a front (they'll feel like I'm emotionally distant or not interested, for me its dysphoria - if I actually go on a date, particularly with someone I don't know, I wouldn't say I'm terrified of people, but the scrutiny that comes into play with this from somebody as the level of drilling; its like standing before a firing squad and by the time its over you almost afraid to see them again).
I face it all down like this: I have a lot of talents, I have a good job, I am a good person, my social skills and ability to read people are actually what put me in the PDD-NOS category rather than Asperger's. Unfortunately my nervous system's shot, that's the autistic component of me. I appear unnatural, wooden, frail, I could work out but my nervous system seems to blow through protein like a Hemmy engine so in the end when I've gotten myself into routines I just started feeling ill and had to stop to feel better again. My internal social angles, my natural emotional orientation, seems to be one that's rarely shared with anyone aside from most often NT's who are pretty far from having AS and I tend to have a lot of friends that I shouldn't otherwise just because they can see that likeness.
But, when your stuck out in limbo - what does it mean? Being honest with yourself? I'm really thinking anymore that I need to just surrender to life, do what makes me happy, and not take any overt shots at anything (more like the situation will draw itself to me if its right). Probably sounds a bit fatalist but I'm really hitting my head on my own genetic limits and I discovered at least 3 or 4 years ago that those limits are like a sheet of rubber, you can push on it so long and rise outside of them a bit but to maintain yourself above and beyond those limits takes an excruciating amount of energy (moreso the farther you go), it doesn't get easier, and the second you relax you get slung right back. Knowing that I've been sort of just trying how to do triage on my wants and needs in that regard - my image, my take on myself, what I feel I need to be in order to be happy, what I need out of the world around me; what I think I'd have to settle for, might be fine on the social level but I know I'd have people always asking a million questions about why I'm single (I'd really want to focus on keeping conversations as far from there as I could and just getting as adept as I can at dodging or changing subjects when it came to that).
The point is I can live my life, especially since I have passions in other areas, in a way that at least can keep me from being unhappy on the day-to-day level. The withdrawls of realizing I'll probably never have a normal life I already went through, convulsed a bit, and its been over for a while. Still, I would hate to have that new-found comfort with my situation swallow chances that were just thrown at me. I really try to be honest with myself and just like I'm good at railing on myself when I'm wrong I've gotten a lot better at talking myself over regrets, especially when looking back and assessing my own capabilities on how to handle other people's differences and aversions to someone who has some real deeply planted differences - just because anymore I can realistically say "Well, don't be so hard on yourself; you saw x, y, and z, and you got a bad feeling about it - if you would have just tried to push through it you still would have felt the same way and if anything just made drama in the end for your efforts" (ie. when I have had someone interested in me but either wasn't attracted to them or, when I was they had been too emotionally brittle with people for me to really feel comfortable).
When I say all this I'm not really firing off a rant, but its an introspect that I need to get out there. Can't say I haven't done everything in my own power to sway things in better directions, just that I've hit so many brick walls with my body, my nervous system, and what it will allow me to get out of myself, its really tough for me to care that much that I'm getting older and things feel like they haven't budged an inch. I think if anything my only fear is that this nice little lul I have in any frustrations around that may come from the fact that I'm still just emotionally battered numb on certain levels from what life's put me through and the fact that the second I'm lonely I have friends and a roommate that I can hit up to chat, watch tv, hit a bar, or something.
I know that no one has the answers but still, I guess I just like talking about the real stuff thats going on. I know people here like to keep it light and simple but I really think sometimes the bigger questions really need to be brought up and addressed. Our non-place in this world gives us these sorts of special circumstances where to really be fully comfortable in our own skin we really have to iron these things out and be pretty well assured in our own answers that we've found.
29 Jan 2008, 8:44 pm
