"What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad."
- Morpheus, The Matrix 1999
Josh, neurodivergent: I've always struggled with relationships, and the above quote from the Matrix has always felt so appropriate. I couldn’t begin to guess at how many hours I’ve devoted to Googling about relationships in attempts to understand them, but it has to be ridiculously high. I have never understood why people become friends, or what is desirable in a friend. Or what is attractive in a person past the surface. Those sorts of things.
I think I was always looking for that secret something that would make it all easier, but never found it. I tried self-help books and countless websites and if anything, it just made everything more confusing. If I did X and Y and didn’t get the expected result from the advice it would only make me more frustrated and less willing to try. I think this was just a major reason why bodybuilding was so appealing. Are you getting results? Do you look bigger or more cut? That is easy to understand. People, not so much.
The flip side of the coin is that while I don’t “get” people, I do understand animals. I absolutely bond far better and more easily with them. This is something I will undoubtedly post more about later because these relationships are what kept me going for a long time.
While I was heavily into body building, I stopped worrying about understanding people. I think because it was far less important to understand someone and I could simply focus on the physical and obvious.
I think what I have learned is that ultimately I just don't do casual relationships. . If something doesn't have a value, I just don't do it. For example - I don't do small talk. I have always felt like my capacity for relationships is finite.. It doesn't take much for me to feel like I've had my fill. As an example, going to the gym by myself, headphones on, I feel like I get my fill simply by having people around. I can see many of them are being social, and I guess I feed from that. To me, thinking about what I might say to someone might even be more valuable than actually doing it because in my mind I avoid the issue of trying to understand norms.
What we wish we'd known: It has become crucial to be intentional about our social lives together. We both enjoy spending time with each other's friends and families, but we limit outings to about once a week and we try to limit group sizes. It's also helpful when social events take place in comfortable and familiar surroundings.
Kelly, neurotypical: When Josh and I started dating, I didn't rush to introduce him to family or friends. We were quickly committed to each other, but I was trying not to be too committed to the idea of a relationship too quickly
Josh and I were immediately comfortable around each other and we enjoyed our time together. He cooked for me, we watched movies (all the Marvel movies, in order of release), took walks with the dogs, and spent quiet time together. I worked long hours and traveled frequently and he wasn't bothered by that, and he was more than happy to watch my dog when I was out of town. Our relationship felt comfortable, steady, and cozy,
So I was mystified when it appeared that Josh didn't want to meet my friends or spend time with them. And when the version of himself that presented around my friends and family just wasn't the same as the Josh I knew. He was stiff, awkward, uncomfortable, and out of place in the company of others, and even in some public places. As time went on, he became sullen and irritable if I insisted on social gatherings, so I eventually stopped trying. This became a major point of contention for us.
It took a long time for me to understand the toll that some kinds of socializing took on Josh. It has not been easy to incorporate that understanding into my vision of our life together; I attend events alone more often than I would like and that makes me sad or angry from time to time. However, I've come to understand that he makes sacrifices every day to function in a society that does not accommodate some of his most basic needs. He makes those sacrifices for me and for our life together and for our daughter... so I try to remember that thinking differently about what our social life together will be like is a small price to pay for his wellness.
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