In January of 2003, two wonderful things happened: I married the love of my life, and I left my 15-year career as a technical writer to become a full-time homeschooling mom.
However, beginning in 2003 and ending in early 2008, I also went through a period in which I was almost totally unable to form friendships. With only two exceptions, this area of my life was a complete disaster.
How did such wonderful experiences coincide with such painful ones? Four major events converged:
1. I moved an hour away from my old neighborhood to the rural county in which my husband had lived for 25 years.
2. I no longer had the daily structure of a full-time job.
3. The daily routine of homeschooling, with all of its required preparation and documentation, came to an end in 2005, when my daughter started going to school.
4. My husband had been the spiritual leader at the synagogue I was attending, and all hell had broken loose when we told people that we were in love. He had been given the decision of choosing between his job and me. Of course, he had chosen wisely. But guess who got blamed for his departure, even after we were married? (Hint: It wasn’t him.)
Finding myself starting over in a new community, I was faced with making a whole new set of friends. Unfortunately, the major changes in my life were exposing all of my deficits in this area.
Difficulties with lack of structure
As I mentioned in my last post, it has always been easier for me to make friends in the context of work. At the beginning of 2003, I found myself in a work-free zone. Homeschooling my daughter took up the slack for a little while, because it provided me with a daily routine and a way to engage the outside world. We had our goals for each day, and I’d bring my daughter to various activities, where I had contact with other adults.
Once my daughter went to school, though, I lost another piece of badly needed structure. The friends were still there, but without the structure, it felt overwhelming to try to make plans with them.
Difficulties with social outings
To be honest, I couldn’t really understand what to do with a friend outside of work or a child-centered activity. We could go to the movies, I suppose, and have dinner, but why? I could watch a movie and eat dinner myself.
After interviewing my husband on this issue, I now understand that neuro-typical people enjoy going out with a friend just because it’s fun to spend time together. He says that he enjoys the back-and-forth nature of a conversation and the good feelings that flow between people who enjoy each other’s company.
That sounds very nice, doesn’t it?
The problem is that, unless I am outdoors walking or hiking, none of that works for me. Part of it is simply the difficulty of keeping a conversation going while sitting down in an enclosed space. I can’t keep up with the spoken words and I have trouble coming up with a response. As I get further and further behind, I fidget, stammer awkwardly, or go into hyperdrive and start talking endlessly.
Put my processing delays into the context of background noise and other sensory stimuli, and the evening quickly becomes very hard work. I get very worn out, and the person sitting in the path of my passionate monologues gets pretty exhausted, too. Whatever my nonverbal cues are, they’re not matching the words tumbling out of my mouth, so most people end up feeling very confused.
By the time it’s all over, I never want to say another thing to another human being ever, ever again.
Inability to let go gracefully
I had tried (and failed) to be part of a religious institution. It had happened before, and it was happening again. Not only was I leaving, but I was leaving under a cloud of hostility and blame.
When it came down to it, I knew that I was right and that they were wrong. And, having a strong sense of justice, I never let myself get run out of a place without some sort of eloquent response. In this case, I had a very public meltdown in front of the entire board of directors.
My husband still refers to it as “the night I spontaneously combusted.” It wasn’t the best way to make friends and influence people.
Making friends for negative reasons
During this period, I formed a friendship with another mom that I thought would last. It didn’t. We had a lot of things in common, but as I look back on it, much of our friendship consisted of being very pissed off at the same things. Needless to say, we burned each other out within a year.
Hey, at least it was reciprocal, right?
Feeling invisible
Has this ever happened to you?
My husband and I would go out food shopping, for example, and we’d run into people who would talk to my husband while completely ignoring me. It happened regularly, and we never knew what to say or what to do. We used to just stand there, thinking that surely, the person would realize how rude he or she was being, and stop. We were wrong.
Once I had had enough experiences like this, I became more and more vulnerable to the slightest things. I was very wounded from what had happened in the synagogue, and I figured that being ignored was an extension of that situation. There was clearly some shunning going on, because some people were openly hostile.
But I’ve since learned that being ignored is not unusual for people on the spectrum. So, I’m willing to admit that perhaps I wasn’t always being ignored just because people were misdirecting their anger at me. Perhaps some people couldn’t see me or deal with me because I didn’t put out the social signals they were used to.
I began to get some insight into this phenomenon when I read the following passage from Women from Another Planet? edited by Jean Kearns Miller:
“One of the unspoken rules seems to me to be, that whatever signals one puts out at first contact are vital to what happens subsequently. If I arrive too overloaded to make some initial contact (eye contact and/or immediate comments), there tends to be no contact throughout the event, no matter how hard I try. I feel like either a social judgment has been made in those first moments, or a social dead-zone perceived, which is unchangeable regardless of what I try subsequently.” (Miller, 40)
I very much identify with the experience described here, and the analysis of why it happens feels right to me.
Difficulty living in the land between acquaintances and close friends
For neuro-typical folks, form in a social interaction is more important than content. I don’t know entirely what that means, because content is sacred to me, but I gather that others engage in various kinds of social niceties that seem to involve questions about the other person’s health and current activities, such as “How are you?” and “What’s up?” These questions, however, do not require a literal response. They are simply a way of saying, “I acknowledge your presence and I come in peace.”
Because of my strong preference for content, I never went through a period of small talk or social niceties with my long-term friends. We just started talking about things that mattered to us, and we felt very comfortable being open with one another. As a result, all of my friends are close friends. Unfortunately, none of them live nearby anymore, but we keep in touch by email and see each other when there is an opportunity. In fact, two of them were the first people to whom I disclosed my AS diagnosis, and they were completely supportive.
I don’t really know how to have friends any other way. So, I generally wait to bump into another person who lacks the small-talk gene, and then I hope for the best.
Luckily, I managed to find two such people during my “time of troubles.” In my next post, I’ll talk about them and how much they’ve meant to my life.
© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
Rachel: I guess you know how Yoko and Linda McCartney felt. Cherchez la femme….
I never had a problem spending time per se, with a friend or good acquitance. I enjoyed it, but small talk among strangers or nodding acquitances is still torture for me. I don’t know what to say, and I frankly find empty talk boring. If you’re a guy, all they want to know is what do you (i.e., what’s your job- with the implication of placing you on the socio-economic totem pole), and sports. Nowadays I don’t mind talking about my job (education), but when I worked in business I really didn’t want to discuss it. When I mention teaching, they give me the spiel about how noble it is, how the kids must be a pain in the ass, and isn’t it dangerous teaching in the hood. They are shocked when I don’t agree with them on any of that, then they turn the conversation to business, sports, their family (I have none). Maybe it’s different for a woman, whether she has AS or not.
My other problems socially include a tendancy to be didactic, lecture, or monopolize the conversation. My default setting is a loud, declamatory voice. I truly was a “little professor” as a kid, so it’s natural that I’m a big professor now (or at least, a big high school teacher/college adjunct). Some of you might have inferred that from my lengthy posts. but Rachel is a gracious hostess. I am aware of these tendancies now, and consciously try to control them, but sometimes I go back to my default settings. My NT girlfriend will tell me not to talk so loud, or humorously hum the Jeopardy theme as I declaim on some subject or other. I get embarrassed. because I thought I had this “undercover Aspie” thing licked.
I used to take social politeness literally. If someone asked how I was, I would really tell them, even if they really were just using it as a polite greeting. It would embarass my parents- I’d do it to their friends. ( In fact, in some cultures it’s only used literally- I think in Russia).
I would overliteralize other metaphors- I became hysterical when I heard someone was fired because I thought she was literally set on fire! In retrospect, learning NT language sensitized me to the point where I can appreciate great literature. But it was a long, socially awkward process.
Rachel, I love every post you write, it is just such a huge relief to know others go through the same things. I know it doesn’t really change the situation for any of us – we all still struggle – but it’s very important to me, especially on a rough day, to know that I can come to this site and feel understood. It’s so rare in my life!
Like you, I either have close friendships or acquaintances, and not really anything else, because I don’t do small talk either. I have now realised that people don’t always want to talk about deep or personal stuff, but I struggle to steer conversation elsewhere because I just don’t know how to talk about other things (I call it ‘curtain talk’). One of my best tricks is to just constantly ask the other person about themself – unfortunately, this tends to lead to the sort of friendships you mention in your ‘Friendship Part 1′ where I become the counsellor and my own needs and personality become invisible.
Really though, my few close friends are enough for me – I’ve managed to maintain more before, and frankly I found it exhausting and overwhelming. I just have to remind myself occasionally that it’s ok not to want or need the same things as other people – being different doesn’t necessarily mean being wrong!
John: I also used to take polite questions like “How are you?” quite literally and always answer them very honestly. I still do, sometimes.
For instance, in the past few years, I’ve tried getting in touch with friends from school. While I’ve had a couple of great responses, I’ve also had lots of people get scared off by my tendency to take words at face value. A typical email exchange would generally go something like this:
Me: “Hi, I don’t know if you remember me, but we went to school together.”
Other person: “Wow, so great to hear from you! How are you? What have you been up to?”
Me: **Insert brief but honest history of my life here, including the joys and struggles.**
Other person: ‘Well, it sounds like your life has been an interesting journey and I wish you all the best.”
Sigh. Although it’s disappointing to get responses like this, I still think it’s better to be straightforward and find the people who appreciate it. They’re in the minority, but they’re the people with whom I feel the most kinship.
In face-to-face conversations out in the world, though, I’ve learned to respond to polite questions with generic responses like “I’m fine.” Interpreted in a certain light, it’s perfectly honest. After all, I’m fine just as I am.
Rachel: Thanks for the last paragraph of your response. I always felt I was lying when I politely said I was fine when I wasn’t.
Mrs. Spock, thanks so much for your response. Being different definitely does not mean being wrong, although some days it can really feel like it.
Unfortunately, many of our neuro-typical fellow travellers mistakenly believe that just because the majority of people think or act in a certain way, their thought processes and behavior must be “normal.” The way the majority of people think or behave may be “normative” in a given context, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us are wrong. We’re just different.
I try to remind myself that neuro-typical people are also on a spectrum of their own–a spectrum with its own neurodiversity. Most of my friends are “officially” neuro-typical, but they are hardly typical in the way they think and live. That’s why we get along so well!
Being what you would probably call a “NT,” I have a comment about your statement that, in social contexts, “form is more important than content.” I agree that form is important — but, for me at least, it is not more important than content. I find myself moving away fairly quickly from “form-only” interactions. I’m far more interested in what a person has to say than how they present themselves. Form IS important for social interaction: The bull-in-china-shop who fails to observe any “social niceties” (i.e., interrupts, monopolizes, hijacks the energy, etc.) doesn’t last long in my interactions. But the nicest, most polite person who only talks about social niceties doesn’t last long either! (Actually, they may last a very long time…however, I’m long gone and haven’t looked back to see whether they’re still at it.)
Bob, it sounds like there has to be a balance between form and content for an interaction to work for you. That makes sense.
For Aspies, it seems, that balance isn’t there–at least, it isn’t there intuitively. I’ve spent a lot of time observing, learning, and attempting to put into play the social niceties, but I’ve never been able to get into any kind of natural rhythm with them.
Sometimes, I get so attached to content that I become impatient with form and just want to get on with what’s important. At other times, I am so afraid of interrupting someone, monopolizing the conversation, or simply saying the wrong thing that I give up on content altogether. I go mute, smile, and nod my head a lot (which, for a woman, is often an “acceptable” social form). It’s unusual that I’m able to hold the balance in the way you’re describing.
i’ve been insanely literal sometimes, though, really, i’ve known better for some years what people mean when they ask me how i am. i don’t tell them how i really am any more, but still have trouble saying ‘fine’, even when i am. i do better when people just say hi. i do find, though, that most NT’s don’t really divulge anything of consequence when i ask them what’s up, since i’m one of the few who really wants to know, if i’ve bothered to ask
my partner calls me “Mister Literal” as a nickname when necessary….
As a cashier in a supermarket, I find that I have to be able to make a certain amount of small talk. To that end, I have memorized a three minute “script” that I can mindlessly rattle off when necessary. Apparently, this makes many of my customers believe that I am very friendly, personable, and enthusiastic, at least the first few times they deal with me. Unfortunately, when somone else deviates from the script, I get very easily flustered and frustrated.
I also agree with the literalist comments. I especially have a terrible time “getting” sarcasm. apparently there are certain non-verbal cues that are often used to signify that sort of thing, but I have never been able to pick up on them. This has often led to a certain amount of awkwardness.
I’ve, with much difficulty, have learned some of the basics of small talk (weather, family, significant others, asking what has been going on), it is still hard for me to keep a conversation going without much in the way of “interesting content” coming from me or the other person.
Oh, and I have a hard time NOT answering “how are you” litterally, it’s embarrassing.