Tue, 13 Dec 2022
Speaking My Language
I have this really cool shirt. You know those shirts that you come across every so often that prompt an inordinate amount of compliments, comments, or general double takes? It's one of those. But this one is even better than your average above average shirt. First, it's a race shirt; I didn't simply pay for it with money. In addition to the money spent, I earned this shirt with my blood, sweat, and tears.
The race was called Tiger Claw—approximately 26 miles done in four loops under a create-your-own-adventure sort of concept; you had to run each loop once, but you picked the order in which you ran them. In essence, you’re just running up and down Tiger Mountain for a few hours until you stumble your way across the finish line amidst the delirium of fatigue and brutal elevation change.
Every time I don this shirt, it reminds me of that finish, of that moment when the agonizing hours spent running in circles uphill both ways at last concluded. It brings to mind two things: first, no state—whether bottomless bliss or peak pain—is infinite; second, I can do hard things. Each time I pull this shirt over my torso, I recall to memory that which is temporal and that which I have overcome.
If that weren't enough, the shirt is also rad as fuck. It's got a large tiger graphic across the chest. Props to whoever conceptualized it, because it seems that the masses also love it. This shirt is one among three shirts I've ever owned that elicits some sort of positive or affirming comment whenever I wear it, irrespective of setting or whether I know the commenter personally. Honestly, it can be a little irritating due to the volume. Like, yeah, I get it; this is the coolest shirt that currently exists.
But wait, there's more. It’s also an athletic piece designed to feel great on a run. And you know what? NO SHIRT HAS EVER FELT BETTER ON A RUN. This shirt—I shit you not—is archetypal comfort and sensory perfection.
The material is lightweight and virtually unnoticeable on the skin once you've put it on. It dries almost instantaneously so clingy, sweaty fabric and chafing are the furthest thoughts from your mind while you’re wearing it. But here is the absolute best part, the most mind-melting intensely wonderful aspect of this shirt or any other article of clothing I have ever owned, indeed, of any article of clothing that I can even imagine existing as a platonic concept. The entirety of the shirt is covered with these little perforations that are just large enough to allow airflow to pass right on through, but not so big as to be visually noticeable from a few feet away.
How to describe the feeling of the airflow gliding through those perforations while moving through space? How to articulate the intensity and completeness of joy and utter ecstasy when I'm running along with sweat on my skin (but not on my shirt!) as the air passes through those tiny holes and caresses the vaguely exposed epidermal layer just beneath the magical fabric?
You may be thinking that this is hyperbolic. And that's the point. Because, if anything, I'm withholding the fullness of how I truly feel about this shirt. Literally even just now, as I thought of it, I felt that internal sense of fluttering wings indicating uncontainable excitement.
A few days ago, I was wearing this shirt because it was a day that ended in "y" and the shirt was clean. I was walking along, minding my own business, when someone stopped me and pointed at my shirt, saying something to the affect of, "I love your shirt! Where'd you get it?"
Immediately, I started gushing about my shirt and almost as quickly, this person's interest disappeared. I could tell the interest had vanished seconds after I began speaking, but I was confused as to why. In an awkward moment of stilted dialogue, I pulled the conversational ripcord and departed.
Several minutes later, when I was by myself, I realized something. This person didn't actually want to know about my shirt. They simply wanted to comment on it, maybe spark some noncommittal small talk to casually connect with a human being, and continue on with their day.
If they just wanted some small talk, why ask an open-ended question? Why can't they just say, "Crazy weather today," or "How about the sports team?" or "It sure is a Monday today, huh?" Why ask about where I got my shirt? And why have such a bad poker face when I legitimately begin to answer the question?
There's one thing I really wish people would just stop doing. Please stop asking questions you don't want the answers to. Instead, ask the question you do want the answer to. When I'm asked a question, I will answer the question I am asked. I so seldom pick up on any subtext in the moment—I can only ever do this in retrospect, it would seem.
Sometimes, I'll detect that the question asked is not the question the asker wants answered, but I have no way to determine what answer is sought. In such situations, I pause. And I pause a little too long. I don't know which is worse, that pause or just answering as I am inclined.
***
"Scripting" is a term with which I was unfamiliar (in an Autistic context) until a couple months ago. To grotesquely oversimplify: it's essentially having social "scripts" at your disposal. These scripts can be anything, but for me, they're very often responses to common situations or kinds of conversation in which I regularly find myself. Some I compose and rehearse "just in case." Some I learn from others and adopt when I see that they tend to work well, or when I can understand how to properly apply them on the fly. Some are simply movie quotes or references to television (or various and sundry other media, pop culture, or artistic references that are likely to be understood by my conversational partner in a given exchange).
Scripting works for the majority of impromptu social interactions I find myself having, but it can be exhausting because I feel nothing when using a scripted response. It's rote, it’s necessary, but it’s not enjoyable. It's the conversational equivalent of chores. If I'm in a social situation for which I have no script, or if the social situation deviates from my prepared script, I flounder and have a really bad time. The conversation goes from a chore to hard manual labor. I don't know if others notice, but I definitely do.
What's just as bad—maybe worse—is what I described above: where I think I'm being asked a genuine question and can thus give an authentic answer, not a scripted response. In such situations, I light up, I get very excited, I feel a moment of genuine connection to the human race, and then all of that falls to pieces as I'm crushed under the devastating realization that I completely misread the situation. My joy was a lie.
It’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve been lonely most of my life. My whole life has been spent learning and speaking the language of allistics (non-Autistics). It is not my native tongue. I will never speak allistic entirely fluently. There will always be a markedly thick accent, a significant linguistic barrier between the prevailing allistic culture and me. I've always attempted to communicate with allistics in their native language, but allistics seem incapable of affording me the same courtesy.
In fairness to those folks in my life who do authentically care for me, we haven't definitively known I speak a different language until very recently. I don't blame anyone for my lack of social fulfillment. It's no one's fault. But wouldn't it be nice if I could simply relax socially once in a while? Allistics make it look so easy, even fun.
I'd like to know how that feels.