Mental as anything

Dear Reader,

Words were exchanged last night.

You could call it a “fight”.

See, i knew that having two girls in the house instead of just one would eventually have its downside.

On the upside, sure, there’s now two gorgeous women flitting about the kitchen at breakfast time with nin-on over none-on, and, sure, there’s now two gorgeous sets of all the round, bouncy, wonderful things that come with women for me to admire (even if i only have penetration rights to one of those sets), and, sure, there’s now two collections of beauty sprays, liquids, lotions, pomades, and a million other whatnots on the bathroom bench…

OK, so maybe that last one’s not an upside.

But the real downside is that they… talk to each other.

You know, the way girls talk.

It’s all about Emotions, and Feelings, and inscrutable stuff like that.

So now, all of a sudden, my fascinating and interesting dinner table topics of discussion are shallow, and oblivious, and without consequence.

Last night, at the dinner table, Princess started a discussion about what we were all going to do about xmas, what with all the families and the haggling over who sees whom when, and all that seasonal cheer crap.

It’s Really Important Stuff, OK? Very Emotional.

But, as things started to get tricky, the discussion ebbed, and i saw those moments of silence as the perfect time to launch into one of my highly animated dinner table stories, in this case, about that astronaut girl who lost her toolbag in space while trying to de-gum the solar array on the ISS.

« …and now the *military* is tracking this thing, right?, and amateur satellite spotters are *filming* it and putting it on *YouTube*, right?, and i *saw* the footage, and it goes, like… ZWOOOOSH! »

Pretty interesting stuff, yeah?

But Princess got all upset, because whereas she and Sybylla would have been back deep in Meaningful Conversation about the Emotions Related To Xmas by that time, i was Zwooooshing around with stories about toolbags that got lost in space.

So this little faux pas of mine had its sequel later on, in the bedroom. Turns out, as Princess explained, i’m a superficial oaf and i always dominate the conversation with stupid, irrelevant topics that have nothing to do with the Real Things In Life (i.e. Us).

Which is, of course, true.

I am like that.

On top of my OCD, i’m a little bit Asperger’s, dear Reader. I have some very high functioning autism going on, i’m afraid, and i tend to be a little awkward socially as a consequence of my mental condition.

It was good of Princess to remind me of that. Usually ppl put up with it and don’t say anything. Which makes me into a boor in their eyes, and i don’t even realise it.

It’s much better to be told.

Mind you, i think that sometimes ppl think that it’s something you can get over, if you just try a little harder. You know, if you just be a bit more mindful of your behaviour, then you’ll be a bit less autistic.

I do try, and try very hard. I’ve got all these rules that i stick to, rules that i’ve developed from years of being involved in conversations; rules that reflect the things that i see normal ppl doing, and which allow me to participate as if i were normal, too.

I like things to be black and white like that: set out in rules.

Unfortunately, sometimes things are grey.

Like that moment last night when the conversation about xmas ebbed. I should have known that it was just a pregnant pause, and not an opportunity to deliver a treatise on rogue space junk spotting.

So we went through all the things i’d done wrong, and now i’ve discovered that i have to adjust my rules a bit.

I didn’t like that, to tell you the truth. It unsettled me.

I spent today walking around like a robot, frightened that someone was going to engage me in conversation before i had my new rules all worked out. Worried that there’d be a pregnant pause, and that i wouldn’t know what to do.

Eventually someone did talk to me, as a matter of fact. But he was a mechanical engineer, so he was even more autistic than i am.

So that conversation worked out well (translation: he was even more awkward than i was). I kept throwing pregnant pauses at him, and he muffed them up just as badly as i had the night before.

Chump.

My new project, then, is to try to figure out rules in black and white that account for grey.

Should be fun.

Yours,
Gullybogan

PS If you have someone autistic, or male, in your life, i hope you find this post helpful.