In my post, NTs Can Be Socially Incorrect Too, I gave an example of one kind of wrong division. Unbeknown to me, that experience would teach me something else important. It was last night, when going for another walk with my dog, that another neighbor unknowingly let me know there is another kind of wrong division that must be brought to light.
There should be no division made between neurotypicals and aspies when it comes to socially incorrect behavior, because both types of people do and say things at times that offend the other. This other type of division I’m about to mention (at least as far as I’m aware of) is not talked about or written anywhere! This one has to do with political attitudes and aspergers.
On Saturday night, just after it got dark out and the rain started pouring, the neighbor mentioned in yesterday’s post came to my house to speak with me. She has lived next door for decades and passes by my house almost every day. My front door faces the road and my driveway goes to the back side of the house. In the front yard paralleling the road, runs a fence just under 3 feet high. This is why she walked past the house, around the turn, and entered onto the property via the other road to come to the house by following the driveway. After getting to the house-end of the driveway, she banged on the window with her umbrella to ask my husband if I was home. He told her I was home and to come to the door. While I heard her ask where the door is, I got up and got my umbrella from the closet because I knew she would not want to come inside the house (even though I’ve invited her over several times). I didn’t know yet why she came over. You can read all about that reason in the post written yesterday.
While I was walking with Saturday’s neighbor back to her house (under the assumption she wanted me to come visit her at her house), Sunday’s neighbor drove past us on the road 3 different times. The distance of our walk was approximately 500 feet, but the time we took doing it was a little over 2 hours.
As I walked past Sunday’s neighbor at dusk, she was wheeling her garbage out to the curbside. Since it was creating a noise which was scaring my little dog, I picked her up to hold her in my arms. As I did, I could see my neighbor giving me a look that seemed to be saying, “Come closer so we can say hello.” I began by mentioning her beautiful tan, then we moved onto discussing our dogs. That’s when she brought up her concern over how things were going with me, because of seeing me with this other neighbor Saturday night out in the dark¹ and heavy rain for so long.
She said she didn’t think anything of it the first time she drove by. On her second pass by us, she began to wonder. It was the third time of going by that made her have to ask what might be wrong. I appreciate concern, but if and/or when it crosses the line by having me feel like others think I don’t know what’s best for myself, then I don’t appreciate it. I do love my neighbors and hope they too are patient as we become acquainted.
I didn’t know how to explain my ‘odd’ behavior any other way than usual. I automatically told the truth. The truth was, I was busy explaining my ‘odd’ behavior from another day walking along the road. That led me to end up explaining why I was explaining, which led me to ask her if she had ever heard of Asperger’s Syndrome.² Since she said she has, I was curious if she too thought of it as being a disease like Saturday’s neighbor insists on believing. I didn’t ask her this in a question format. Instead, I used an illustration to see what reaction I’d get. I told her, “Imagine if you told a black person that his skin color was a disease and pitied him because there was no ‘cure’. What do you think his reaction would be?” She seemed surprised by my words and asked me if I thought of that analogy on my own. Anyhow, that led to her eventually telling me it’s a good thing I live in an area that’s populated mostly by liberals (I think she suspects that Saturday’s neighbor isn’t liberally minded, but rather is a ‘dumb’ redneck).
Needless to say, she was stunned when I told her that I hate the area where I live because of how unfriendly almost everyone is towards me. She didn’t know what to say to that, especially when I added my next piece of information. I told her that (generally speaking) I noticed throughout my life, the less populated an area is, the nicer people would be towards me, and that as an area’s population increases, so does the rudeness. I wasn’t going to push it by adding that people who are usually the cruelest of all towards me are those in the so-called cultured community moving in from New York City and taking over the area. I did say I believed I would be the happiest if I lived in some remote area of Alaska where there were some people, but very few.
When I told that same statement about where I’d love to live to a liberal aspie friend of mine, he actually believed I didn’t know best where I’d love to live. This young aspie guy mentioned some place in the state of Maryland is where I belong because of how ‘tolerant’ the people are there and that many transvestites living there prove that it is so. Then, he displayed a negative reaction over my wanting to live in Alaska because that’s where Sarah Palin is from.³
I personally am now sick of division gone wild! What’s wrong with people who love to divide? Is it a control thing and desire to ‘conquer’? Divisions exists because people are different, but they become a wildfire when these differences become assumptions people make and end up spreading in popularity so fast that those people who do it either don’t care or don’t realize how ignorant they appear.
¹Our roads don’t have street lights (I do not like street lights) and neither of us thought about flashlights. In that weather and at that time, it’s rare for a car to pass. When one does, there is room to move over. I say that because I know there are some people who would think such behavior, as our being on the roadside that Saturday night during the storm, is irresponsible—as if we’re children who need supervision.
²After asking her this, I explained to her why I was happy when I discovered that the ‘mysterious ingredient’ of my life is that I’m an aspie (without verbalizing my further thought→ thereby enabling me to finally get the ‘complete’ picture to see society the way it really is).
³Didn’t you think I already knew that Mrs. Palin is from Alaska? If you’ve reading this my dear friend, I hope you know my ‘grumble’ here doesn’t mean I don’t like you. You’ve displayed too many wonderful characteristics of friendship thus far for petty remarks like yours to do any significant damage to our friendship.
