January is Stalking Awareness month, and as I indicated in my previous post, I have a personal story to tell. I've been unable to get a diagnosis for Asperger's Syndrome (AS) for reasons previously stated, but remain strongly convinced that's what my condition is. I've met other people with confirmed AS who are like me, and yet unlike me at the same time. The symptoms are similar, but the personalities are different. Some of us can get married, in a condition where it's an exception rather than the usual rule.
I did not become aware of my condition until I was just past the age of forty. I've had only ten years to deal with this, having spent half my life trying to get life half figured out. It is preferred that children learn about it at an early age, if they have it; the younger, the better, no matter how their parents might feel about it.
It's been my experience that most Aspies are extremely intelligent, typical nerds. We just tend to be clumsy, both physically and emotionally. We can easily say the wrong thing at just the wrong time, and quickly alienate ourselves. There is nothing wrong with us, other than that we differ from the norm, as all of us do in one way or another. No one is perfect, and no one is really normal, whatever that is. AS and autism simply add other dimensions to the population's personality quirks and strange behaviors. And for the record, Aspies are not typically violent. Adam Lanza was just a screwed up kid who happened to go on a tragic rampage.
It's difficult to describe what I was like before I turned forty. In school, I was interested in chemistry, mathematics, music, the language we speak, and little else. I never thought about the future, that I would grow old and die someday, or even that I could die that day or the next. I walked around in a social fog, oblivious to almost everything around me, including most other students.
Due mainly to my youngest brother's hyperactivity, I determined at an early age that I didn't want children of my own, and from then on, the cons against them grew more quickly than the pros. As I later learned, a determination like that is life altering, because it says how we will view and treat the opposite sex from then on; as lovers, or as just friends.
And yet I have always held a fascination, a determined focus, with certain females, due to my unknown condition at the time. I did poorly in biology and human anatomy because I had no particular interest in those subjects; I did not understand that the primary function of all life is to reproduce. As a result, I understood why boys hung around with girls, because most girls are attractive in one way or another, and they usually smell pretty.
Personally, I never did understand the makeup, ladies. Perfume, yes; makeup, no. Most men will happily give you both sex and children whether you wear them or not.
But I could not fathom why girls would want to visit with boys, because while I found girls to be attractive, I didn't find other boys to be so at all. I didn't understand why a boy would get upset or jealous just because I was talking to his girlfriend. If I had, I would've been like, "Relax, dude. I don't want kids, so I'm not going to steal her from you. We're just friends. Chill."
I found that I wanted to be friends with certain girls, just as I was friends with some of the other boys. To me, sex wasn't an issue, and I'm still that way, but most women do not understand that. Today, though, I understand the paradox that I live with. In intimate relationships, sharing sex along with everything else is expected. For myself, having a female friend around sometimes can be nice, but for the most part, I just want to be left alone with my usual routine. I wouldn't be able to deal with a full time wife, with all of her belongings, family, drama, and so on.
With me, due to my disinterest and condition, there was a sixth sense going on along with the hormones and primal instinct. I was interested in the female shape, yes, but not nearly so much as the personality, not quite understanding that body and soul are two distinctly different things. I did not lose my virginity until I was in my 30's, but even by then, I didn't understand how rare and precious true love really is. People should never get married just because he likes hers and she likes his. Compatible personalities should always be the deciding factor. That's why you sometimes see gorgeous women married to unattractive men, and vice-versa.
I met a girl attending my high school who was like an emotional fire hydrant to me. I could literally feel her emotions gushing out of her as she was talking and standing in the next room, before I saw her for the first time. When I did see her, she was the most beautiful creature I had ever beheld. I determined right then and there that I would marry her someday, but she wanted nothing to do with me nor any other boy. Not understanding why this was so, I followed her around school for the next three years, at a time when stalking was considered little more than a nuisance. Then her father passed away, and the remaining family moved outside Alaska, where I continued to write letters to her. Eventually I learned that I was actually scaring the whole family before I stopped.
I became somewhat acquainted with another girl that I wrote to for about 30 years, who I will call Susan. She wasn't like the hydrant at all, but there was definitely something distinctly different that was present about her. Her emotional state seemed very quiet to me, even rather shy. My junior year, Susan was a young freshman, just standing in the middle of a hallway, smiling, one of her first days in high school. I can only assume that she was trying to see which of the boys would notice her, for she was also quite attractive.
It wasn't her look that took my eye, though, so much as that unusual personality. Even at that young age, she seemed to be glowing and overflowing with confidence and self-esteem. I knew I wanted to be friends with her, but I never had any particular interest in marrying her. Somehow I seemed to know that she would be successful at something someday, but again, no details. Later, she rose rather high up in the corporate world, where I continued to bother her for a time, until she'd finally had enough. By this time, stalking had been a felony in California for quite awhile, and was becoming a serious concern around the nation for law enforcement.
I literally felt Death one time, but not my own. I don't call it a power so much as a curse; I do not like it. I had already become familiar with death as a young child, but not like this. I used to sit with a kindly old widower whose wife had died some years before. I was about 6, and he was around 95 or so. After school, I came home on the bus each day. While I waited for my mother to get home, I visited with the old man, who told me his war stories and gave me ice cream. Then one day I knocked on his door, and there was no answer. My mother told me he had passed away in his sleep the night before, and that I couldn't ever see him again because he was in Heaven.
I was friends with a 15 year old girl whose family is friends of my own. Tanya was rather attractive, not fat, but young and stout with an average, medium sized frame, a good candidate for motherhood in another ten years. A certain catalyst happened one night, and I felt Death punch me in the gut, like someone had thrown a brick at me. I headed for the bathroom, feeling quite ill for about ten minutes, but I didn't throw up.
I don't know how I knew, or who or what had provided the information, but I knew that Tanya was destined to die within another month's time. Maybe Death decided I needed to know for some reason, but to what end, I don't know. I didn't have any other details, and I didn't dare tell anyone, least of all Tanya, my family, or hers. It was kind of eerie, seeing her around and talking to her after that, almost like I was talking to a ghost.
Sure enough, Tanya was killed in a drunk driving accident about two and a half weeks later, along with an older woman who was driving. The woman's daughter, in the back seat, was in a coma for three days, and survives to this day. It still makes me feel badly, because if I'd only had a few details, Tanya and the older lady might still be alive today.
Most people cannot relate with such a story, but at nineteen, and particularly in my condition, I had no way of knowing that. Like I said, emotionally clumsy. Susan worked at a store that I frequented, and I felt I had to tell my story to someone, so I told her. In a way, she's still special to me, but since I was never interested in mating with her, I cannot say how or why with an explanation that makes any rational sense. So, in attempting one, I tried to link what I felt about her with Tanya's story, and wound up scaring the bejesus out of her. Like I said, we can also alienate ourselves, and pronto. I had to come back later and tell her, to her relief, that she wasn't in any danger of dying, but the damage had already been done.
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