Let’s talk more about me and my broken brain. I say that with my tongue firmly in my cheek, but I still half-believe it. Or rather, I know that I think very differently than most other people. I have accepted that, and I’m mostly ok with it. The hardest part is when I say something that I think it totally vanilla and get an outsized reaction to it. That’s when I completely retreat into myself and shut down. I hate when I’m trying my very best, and it’s still not good enough.
Which, honestly, is how I feel most of the time when I interact with the normies. I’m always calibrating what I should say and what I shouldn’t. And usually erring on the side of not saying something if it’s even close to questionable. That’s why I’m miffed when I say something that I consider safe and then I get shit for it, anyway. Oh, and here is my post from yesterday before I go any further with this post.
You know what’s also frustrating? Neurotypical people saying that everyone has to mask or hide parts of their true selves at work (or other times). While it’s true that everyone has to mask to o certain extent, it’s the extent and amount of effort that matters. And it’s discounting how much more neurodivergent people have to mask than normies.
Side note: I could say that about any minority, by the way. It’s a point I wish normies would truly internalize. Minorities have to go the extra mile-and-a-half past where they (the normies are) just to be considered equal. Plus, we always have to make the calculation of how much of ourselves we can show. In some ways it’s better now than it was when I was in my twenties, but in many ways, it’s much worse.
One of the big ones is queer issues, especially trans issues, obviously. It’s horrifying how quickly and viciously the current administration is attacking civil rights for queer people. Every time I check the news, they are trying something or the other to do harm to me and my kin. It’s reached the point where I don’t want to hear anything on the news because it’s just going to make me angrier.
I was talking in the Discord I’m in about dating. I mentioned that I haven’t dated in quite some time in part because the last two times I thought about dating, rather big events interrupted that train of thought (the pandemic and me dying (twice!), respectively). I know it’s superstition, but I’m worried about trying for a third time.
Also, I’m overwhelmed every time I go on the apps. There is just so much there, I don’t really know what to do. One person in the Discord suggested doing backstage steps first. Such as writing out what I was looking for to make it clearer in my mind. I told her that was what actually worked for me, anyway. Breaking things into micro-steps, I mean.
When my brother started dating after his divorce, I was so impressed by him. He set up three or four profiles and was very diligent about messaging. He did it every day, and when he felt burned out, he took a break. I cautioned him that Asian men and black women got the least amount of responses, but that did not deter him. He worked so hard, he had one or two dates more weeks than not.
I also admired how he would message once or twice and then set up a date. When he was turned down, he just moved on. He ended up dating a few women he met, but they didn’t work out. Until he met the one who did. They clicked from the very start, and they’ve been together for almost four years–I think? Three or four (pretty sure it’s the latter).
It’s so unlike me. Back when I used to try to use the apps to date, I struggled getting past the endless messaging stage. I’m not good meeting people in general, and especially when it’s in a dating situation. I am better at writing than I am in person, but I know at some point you have to actually meet in person. I mean, if you want to get laid, for sure.
I think the part that I really admired was that he just moved on if it didn’t go well or if he didn’t get a positive response. He went pretty hard at it, but he took breaks when it started getting to him.
I told him a few months after he started dating that I had’nt seen him that happy in a long time, and it was clear that he was moving on with his life. I respect that about him, too. The fact that he doesn’t tend to brood on things that happened in the past. I brood about everything. I feel like we got the complete opposite traits from birth, and nurture didn’t help with that.
We do have some things in common like autism, but it manifests in different ways for each of us. He has the classic presentation, and I’ve known for several decades that he was autistic. As for me, I thought I could not be because I didn’t fit any of the classic stereotypes for autism. Plus, I was oozing empathy–or so I was told.
Here is my dirty little secret about empathy: I didn’t actually empathize with other people. I just knew how to act like I did. I learned that through trials, tribulations, and tears. Same with my own feelings. I knew how to pretend out loud that I had feelings and to make it look human. What I didn’t know was how I actually felt at the time.
When I described my thought process on feelings to my autistic friend, she said that was pretty typical for autistic people. (Getting a piece of news, not knowing if it’s positive or negative. Looking at the other person to see how they’re reacting, and then responding with the appropriate tone/looks. By now, this take under a second, but it used to take several seconds.)
When she told me to take an online quiz to see if I might be autistic, the first thing the test said was to unmask as much as possible. When I started taking the test, I just could not do it. I have been masking for so long, I could NOT successfully unmask. I talked with my friend about it, and she told me to do it as best I could. Which wasn’t very good.
I’m done for now.