I want to talk more about gender identity, sexual orientation, and dating. And labels. Maybe. It’s been at the forefront of my mind for several reasons. I mentioned in the last post a few times when it was helpful to have labels (mostly with health issues), and I am not going to muse whether or not it’s helpful in dating.
I will say I don’t like the labels I’ve chosen for my sexual and gender identities. They are both the least worst of the bad, and I’m not satisfied with either. Bisexual and agender, by the way. I’ve had the former label for over thirty years, and it has never sat right with me. I like queer the best, but it now is synonymous with gay. I’m not happy about it, but it’s not a fight I’m up for fighting.
Same with genderqueer. I really like it as a descriptor for not being on the binary in the fullest sense of the term. But now it means nonbinary in the same way queer means gay.
Sigh.
I’m irritated with myself for always making life so difficult. This is part of being neurodivergent, too, though. I’ve read that people who are neurodivergent often feel the need to be really explicit and on point with their words. I can attest that this is me, and it’s annoying as fuck. Even to me when it’s me doing it.
I overexplain things and belabor the point until the other person is ready to scream. I can see the shift on their face (or hear it in their message), and yet, it takes a Herculean effort for me to shut the fuck up. The person I’m talking to doesn’t need a twenty-page backstory to every idea I want to present. When I found out this was a thing with autistic people, I felt validated.
Another thing is that everything is related in my brain. I can’t tell a story without bringing in what others would consider extraneous information and tidbits. When I talked to my autistic friend about it, she was in enthusiastic agreement that her brain worked that way, too. It’s one reason we can have comfortable conversations (in messages). We can pepper in as many non sequiturs as we want without worrying. And if one of us goes really far down a weird road, the other will bring the first person back again.
Or not. Sometimes, I join her on the side path to nowhere (and vice-versa), which can lead to some wild journeys. And once in a great while, I don’t know where she’s going. I can usually figure it out, but if I can’t, I just ask questions until I get the gist of what she was trying to say.
Knowing that this is a thing for neurodivergent people is such a relief to me. It doesn’t mean that I just let myself ramble all I want whenever I want, but it does mean that I can be a bit kinder to myself when I can’t seem to stop utter nonsense from coming out of my mouth.
One of my goals for this year (which I have not accomplished) is to find a local Asian queer group I can join (online, even if it’s local) so I can have community. If I do, there needs to be a hefty portion of them who are neurodivergent because it’s really hard to be in a group of normies for too long.
I’m used to it, yes, but I don’t enjoy it. I know that I’m going to be the minority in several ways no matter where I go in Minnesota. If I want this not to be true, I have to move out of Minnesota. The problem is, I need cold. I NEED it in my soul. I need it for my body. It’s part of my sensory isuses. I can’t stand the heat, and by the heat, I mean anything over 70. To be fair, I can tolerate it until 80. Then, I tap out. I lose any sense of well-being when I’m hot and sweaty.
There’s only one time when I can put up with getting hot and sweaty, and even then, I don’t like it. Back when I used to have sex on the regular, I would shower immediately to get the gross sweat off me. I did not like sex in the shower, though. That was too much stimulation at one time. Plus, someone is always cold and someone is always hot, and all I can think about is, “When is this going to be over?” I mean, there’s a bed right there! With soft, fluffy pillows and blankets! Why the hell are we fucking in a shower?
I’m lazy AF. It’s why I chose to do Taiji. My teacher calls it the lazy person’s martial art. Using the least amount of energy you can to get the maximum output possible. I found out in researching autism that lazy is an adjective that is often thrown at autistic people. It’s a misunderstanding about how autistic people work, and it’s not helpful.
I was talking to my autistic friend about how frustrated I get with myself because something as simple as getting bed at a decent time (3 a.m. in this case) should not be as hard as my brain makes it. It should be as simple as move to my bed (couch) at two-thirty and fall asleep by three. Except.
I have my laptop there, and I write for an hour before going to bed. That means I need to get there by 2 a.m. (which is not going to happen tonight)–which comes sooner than I ever think it’s going to. I know that’s not technically true, but I think you get what I mean. Time plods along until midnight, and then it speeds up exponentionally. Suddenly, it’s three in the morning (or four or five), and I have no idea how it got there.
That’s another thing that neurodivergent people suffer from–time blindness. This seems to be more of an ADHD thing than an autism thing, but I think it’s still can be present in the latter. My autistic friend…let’s just call her A…has the same issue. She’s given me a few suggestions in what I might try to get to bed at a more reasonable time, and they are really good. The usual ‘turn off your electronics’ advice, which I’m bucking hard against. Why? Because I’m emotionally three.
I see that I did not get to dating at all in this post. Oh well. I will try to get to it tomorrow–or now. We’ll see how i feel tomorrow.