I was there, so I should know.
I consistently observe the same reaction whenever I tell others that people (generally speaking) were friendlier towards me the further back I go in my life. I would add to that, I notice friendliness decreasing as time goes on. I suspect that this might not as much be the case for neurotypicals. Younger aspies I doubt have lived long enough to know what I’m talking about.
I guess the first conclusion most people might jump to is to blame me for that. It’s easy to claim I must be the one who has become less friendly, especially when no one has known me my entire life.¹ Maybe it might be true for NTs that to have a friend, one must be a friend. To those who think that statement always applies, they should ask themselves how many times have they tried to be friendly to someone only to have their efforts fail.
Before learning about Aspergers, for the most part, I was constantly trying to figure out ways to be a nicer person due to thinking that was the reason why it appeared I was cursed in my ability to make friends. What the discovery of Aspergers did for me was to reveal the fact that no matter how hard I try to learn how to please people so they will befriend me, no amount of effort on my part is ever good enough.
To be honest, I must say I did get to briefly experience having a friend on occasion. At least, to me, they seemed like a friend. Now in hindsight, I see that those friends often times where either like me in that they too struggled with making a friend or they were people who saw an opportunity to take advantage of my loneliness (as my faith grows, my loneliness decreases).
I know this probably does not make sense to most who may be reading this and may seem unbelievable, especially to unbelievers (I couldn’t resist adding in that pun). Whether or not one understands and/or believes me, that still doesn’t change what I’ve seen from my own experience.
I do have an explanation as to how this could happen to an aspie, but it will only help for those who can remember the times in America when no businesses were open on Sunday and most people went to church (the mid-20th century). It was when people would be ashamed to do such things as replace AD and BC with BCE and CE, along with many other things I’d rather not mention. What was socially correct has been now replaced with new standards of social behavior. Today’s modern social standards might seem more tolerant of all people, but that’s actually not true when it comes to the tolerance of aspieness.
I shall borrow the paraphrased words written by Kenneth Taylor from Matthew 6:31-33:
So don’t worry at all about having enough food and clothing. Why be like the heathen? For they take pride in all these things and are deeply concerned about them. But your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and he will give them to you if you give him first place in your life and live as he wants you to.
Peer pressure back then meant it wasn’t cool to be seen as being a person of little faith. Today, that has flip-flopped for the most part thanks to the ‘mental health’ profession. More attention is given to psychology than to sinful behavior that stems from the heart. Another example of that is jealousy. People aren’t ashamed anymore to tell someone they’re jealous of him. I have heard it said that it makes most people feel good to hear someone make a remark of feeling jealous. People love to be envied. There is even a perfume named Envy Me!² Now if that’s not an example of society going down the toilet, I don’t know what is!
I received a stunned reaction when I said that I feel deeply hurt by people who claim to be jealous of me. There is something wrong when one has to explain why he doesn’t like being the object of jealousy and/or envy!
Now that the knowledge of Aspergers set me free from my bondage to some insane behaviors (along with what God already had been warning me about), I was told that people are jealous of my not worrying over what others think about me.³ That news sure was a surprise when I heard it!
I could write much more on this topic, but if I need to in order for others to comprehend what I’m saying here, then most likely it will fall on deaf ears.
¹Those who knew me when I was younger, haven’t been in my life for a long time now. Those who know me now, haven’t been with me in my earlier years.
²Now that’s a perfume you can really call ‘toilet water’!
³I know it sounds inconsistent to be hypersensitive towards criticism while at the same time claiming to not care what other people think about you, but that would only be because of jumping to the wrong conclusion of motive. I have a difficult time with criticism NOT because of wanting to please everyone all the time anymore, especially since I’ve finally realized how impossible that is. My challenge with criticism comes from being overly concerned about being a good representative of Christ because of knowing how much people judge Christianity by what they observe from Christians rather than Christ. I may be a Christian, but I am not Christ. Only Christ was perfect.
