Report on my Aspie meet - sob!

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I'm rather upset just now and wanted to get it all out of my system.

My first ever meet-up was awful.

I will try to make a long story short, but I'm not very good at that, so if you want you can just pretend that you've read all the waffle and then say "tut tut, poor you" when you get to the end.

Basically, I don't go out much.

I spent weeks counting down and building up to the fact that I WAS ACTUALLY GOING SOMEWHERE THIS EVENING and planning what to wear and how to get there and double-checking the time and location, etc. This meet was being held IN A PUB - of all non-Aspie-friendly places - so I had countless fears that I would walk in and freeze and everyone would stare at me and I wouldn't know who the Aspies were or where to sit. Relax, I told myself. You're worrying over nothing. Of course you will find them. Of course no one will stare at you or think you're weird.

*Hollow laugh*

I get there and NO ONE IN THE WHOLE PUB has even heard of any darn monthly Aspie meet, and THERE ARE NO ASPIES THERE and I start to feel like I'm going mad. I stand at the bar pleading with the staff to check and double check, and people are staring at me, and despite the fact that I've spoken to the organisers on the phone, emailed them countless times, and checked and triple-checked the date and location on numerous websites, and the info from all of those sources says I should be here, today, NOW, with fellow Aspies, NO ONE SEEMS TO KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!

I get their Wi-Fi password and bring up the webpage on my phone and show it to the waitress to show her the venue is definitely supposed to be there, but she shrugs and says she doesn't have a clue.

I don't know what to do. Do I cry? Do I wait? Do I go home?

I go out and walk aimlessly through the streets and cry, and sit on a swing and cry some more, and wonder why the fricking frick these things always happen to me, and wait a while and go back and pluck up the courage to go back in the scary pub. Still no Aspies.

So I go out in the street and call for a taxi to go home, and while I'm waiting, a helpful man who's out for a smoke asks me kindly if I'm OK, and I cry a bit and explain about the Aspie meeting, and he helpfully goes and checks in the other hotels and pubs for me, and comes running back and points to a TOTALLY DIFFERENT HOTEL and says: "they're in there."

**?!?!?!?***!??!?!?!?!?!****

"Thank you, helpful man."

I go in, and the only people who are there are two organisers, who beam at me and seem to think it slightly amusing when I tell them that their leaflets, emails, websites etc ALL TOLD ME TO GO TO THE WRONG PLACE! I mean, can't they see how hard it was for me to go at all? They should have known they needed to give out accurate information!

Apparently they "haven't been meeting there for ages now."

Well, how was I supposed to know?

They talk to me kindly for a while all about my pending diagnosis, and then I call the taxi driver to take me home.

He's miffed because I had totally forgotten I called for him an hour ago to get me at the other pub, and I have to give him an extra tip.

THE END



*all_white goes away to hide under her bed and decides she will need at least another month to recover before emerging into civilisation again*

On the up side...I'm never sad for long. It's quite funny really, isn't it?

I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow.

*hugs* i would have a longer reply but i'm actually going offline.
but .. wow this is a useless post.
just *much support for you*

Thanks, Em.

You're so fast!

This has happened to me before as well where I will get times, dates, and places confused, even though I do the same thing you do like check and re-check dates and times and I still get it wrong. I think this maybe an Aspie thing in that what our eyes see is not the same message the sends to our brains, and therefore we screw ourselves up. Not too long ago I showed up for a class I wasn't suppose to be in because I swear I saw the right place and time, but in fact I was suppose to be in that room two hours later.

No no no no no it was them. Don't mess with my brain any more than they already have. It was their mistake. Really. I'm not mad. I can even give the link to their website where they've got the wrong info listed.

They apologised. It was them, not me.

They hadn't bothered to update it, for some reason. Presumably because they don't often get new people coming along, and the locals all find out about things via the grapevine.

Edit: I do know what you mean, though. Once I made a Terrible Dreadful Monumental Error In The Workplace that cost my company money and reputation. It was all down to me reading something wrongly on a computer screen. To this day I could have sworn it said ABC, but they insist it said XYZ.

But it just so happens that tonight was NOT one of those occasions! Tonight all_white was NOT mad and was NOT mixed up!

I get incredibly confused and disoriented, too. But, this doesn't seem like a case of it. Rather, just bad planning/organizing/communicating. It's little wonder that no one showed up (if I'm ready the story correctly). The take-away here is that whatever happened was not your fault. Didn't have anything to do with you...

Geez. I wonder how many people show up each month to the wrong venue and simply go home and never try again? Sounds like a group in need of new leaders. I'm sorry it went so wrong.

Oh god, I would have killed them!

That was really nice of that random guy to go hunt them down for you.

I hate it when groups get cliquey like that. I was in one once and they switched the meeting place at literally the last minute, didn't bother telling anyone else about it (via text, email).

It's even worse, because like you, going out is kind of a big deal and there's a lot of 'what ifs' going round my head in advance. It all feels wasted when nothing happens!

Thing is they don't do it maliciously, even though it is thoughtless, and it happens all the time, so best thing to do is work out how to avoid it happening again.

For what it's worth, my advice would be to go back again next week; you probably won't want to, but if you face them again it won't be so bad. Also, if you haven't already, get their mobile numbers- as many as possible!

Yes, I think the random man was the hero of the day.

Maybe I will just start my own Aspie group. I wonder if anyone on here lives near me?

*hugs*

You should be proud of yourself. You not only had the guts to go in somewhere - you also asked questions and went in again. That's seriously good going.

You should try to go back. Now that you've identified this as a problem you could bother the people in charge to change it. Being brave is scary but it can lead to good things if you keep at it.

Well, maybe there could be like a sub-forum called "Aspie meet ups?"

They have something like that on another (non-AS-related) forum I frequent, but I've never gone to any of them.

It's a members only part of the forum, and they just post threads saying "anyone fancy a meet up in the XYZ area around June?" and then the thread takes off and people blab and argue and vote about when and where, and someone in the thread takes charge and notes down who's going and decides on a meeting place somewhere public out in the open. Then they all just meet. And have fun. And take pics, and post them afterwards.

We could do that. Couldn't we?

Or are people too paranoid about meeting up with perfect strangers?

Edit: sigh. I was forgetting everyone else is like me, and doesn't want to go out of their comfort zone. I have huge anxiety issues about travel. I'd vote for the meetup to be in my back garden. Any further than that, and I probably wouldn't go! LOL

Well done on you for going at all! It rather sounds as though the organizers didn't quite grasp how difficult it was for you to try to attend, and how stressful the experience was that their error caused. (Maybe because they, too, have Asperger's syndrome and they weren't quite able to perceive your emotional distress?) Hopefully, now that you know how things are, you will perhaps be able to effect some changes based on your own experience that might make it easier for other new people to begin attending.
Kudos to the kind gentleman who helped you find the meetup, though. It's heartening to know that that sort of generosity from a stranger still exists, and I hope it made you feel better to some extent.

I think you did quite well, considering the circumstances. Wish you luck on your next outing!

This doesn't really happen to me but at one of my autism meetings, we always meet at the IHOP once a month. Well these new people came to the wrong IHOP so they didn't see us there. They called the leader and he said we were here and then it turned out they were at the wrong location.


Another time I was going to some gathering (none autism related) and we were told the restaurant and the location. But the person wasn't clear enough so I ended up at that location and couldn't find the restaurant so I went back home. I checked again and it turned out it was somewhere else and not that location because I looked at the directions and it said the name of the road it was on. I didn't feel stupid one bit because she said the location and it mislead us and I figured anyone would have done that mistake. I was right because another person did the same mistake but someone was able to tell him where the restaurant was at so he went there and there they were. He had better luck than me because no one told me when I asked. But I didn't hop back in my car again and go there because I had wasted enough gas. I was pissed about it and thought I will try and get better directions next time the day comes. I will want the address than the location so I can google it and then come to the right place and not be mislead. The restaurant was like ten miles away from the location.

I will never understand why people will say a location of something and not have it be there. To me it's just misleading. I also hate it when people change the location at the last minute and not tell anyone or they change it right before it happens and you don't find out about it until you get home and then you see they had changed it and you better check your email before you leave to make sure there had been no changes. I also learned that lesson. A beach party was canceled last summer because the header had to work that day. I learned I better check my email first before leaving next time to make sure it's not canceled. So take this as advice as well. Also having a phone number helps so you can call them if you can't find them. I also learned to bring the number with so I can call just in case. Leaders usually leave their number for anyone to call. My anxiety gets less and less when I learn how to handle these situations and then I am able to stay calm because I have been in them before. I call it learning from experience.

Wow, I'm so sorry that happened to you. and that's such a... well, normal thing to happen. I mean, that's like THE classic AS mistake/screwup. Not as in, the kind of mistakes we make, but as in, the kind of mistakes that people with AS keep running into and keep causing major issues. I'm kind of amazed that a meeting for people with AS didn't try to be proactive about instructions always being clear and up to date. It's the one thing I insist people get absolutely right, time, place and directions. Because what you can't find, you can't even try out. Major props to the helpful random guy! It's awesome that you ran into someone willing to help out like that.