The More People I Meet, The More I Like My Cat

Finally! It is found! I wrote this back in August, but I was busy, and then I lost it before I could post it.

The ‘loner’ stereotype and the sensory oversensitivity/companionship paradox: being unable to stand the presence of others but craving their company.

If you were to ask someone I went to school with, someone with whom I was reasonably well-acquainted with but not close to about my level of sociability, they probably would have described me as ‘not a people person’ or ‘not particularly social’  or even as ‘antisocial.’ I was unfailingly kind and polite to others – that I was never mean to, or about, other people was the one thing besides being ‘quiet,’ that I was well-known for – but I spent every lunch break by myself on the computer and generally evaded invitations to join groups of classmates at lunch.

When I hear the word ‘antisocial’, I think of someone who doesn’t like others, who is irritated by their presence, who would prefer mostly to be alone and does not enjoy company -  in other words,  someone who is not merely uninterested in, but actively dislikes social interaction. It has always surprised me when this label is applied to me, because I hold friendly feelings towards other people generally, and in my mind am a moderately social person.  The problem is, I can’t live up to that.

Despite the fact that most of the Asperger people I have known are somewhat lonely, they tend to keep to themselves and don’t seek out company. Some of them simply do not know how to go about it, or where to start. Some do not realise that it is up to them to befriend others, leaving the initiative to other people.

Then again some are so unsure that they don’t dare try to befriend others, in case they mess it up or do something wrong. Other Asperger people simply do not bother anymore; they have been rebuffed, rejected, excluded or tormented so many times that they no longer try to connect with other people, preferring to avoid opening themselves up to such painful, seemingly-inevitable experiences. It is a sad fact that this can start very early in life; even at a very young age, children can sense differences in others, and can be incredibly cruel. By seven years of age, I was such a social outcast because of my social deficits that I was suicidal, and used to wish that I simply failed to wake up one morning in order to escape the daily torments. While things are not always so extreme as to drive an Asperger person to quite this level of desperation, being an outsider is nonetheless the norm. (“You say loner, I say outcast,” proclaims Lastcrazyhorn.) 

Once an Asperger person has reached the point where they simply no longer make an effort any more, it can be difficult to persuade them to do so even when there is a valid opportunity to build a friendship.

Other Asperger people never give up their search for acceptance, but more often than not those people are simply rejected over and over again in one way or another. More than in any other case, they are not avoiding positive social contact by choice; they simply cannot find anyone willing to be friends with them. It is extraordinarily painful to confront the fact that no one feels that you are worth being friends with, that you have so few redeeming qualities that others reject your initial overtures; that whatever excellent qualities you possess – intelligence, loyalty, a sense of humour, kindness, etc – none of it is enough to make up for your social ineptness.  It is no wonder so many give up and withdraw into themselves, abandoning friendship as a lost cause. Even those with initial success may find that friendships founder when they reach deeper levels of intimacy, and their lack of social understanding betrays them despite their good intentions.

On a closely related note, one of the worst things that can happen to a lonely Asperger person , in my opinion, is to be branded a ‘loner.’ Too often people simply assume that the Asperger person prefers solitude and thus do not attempt to invite them into the social milieu.

Well do I remember, even now, the pain of a particular incident when I was about twelve. Utterly alone at that point, I was delighted when a new student joined my grade.  (It had only nineteen people as a lot of the students joined the big private school at ten years old; my grade was small enough that we were put together with the grade below for class. Everyone knew everyone else and was involved in every conflict or intrigue; things tended to ferment, socially speaking.)  I made plans to do my best to get the new girl on side since she wouldn’t hold any initial prejudices against me. Finally I could have a friend! I was filled with happiness when I overheard her express an interest in getting to know me to several of the other students. Unfortunately one of my classmates airily replied, “Oh, don’t bother, she doesn’t want friends. She’s a loner.” I was, of course, crushed. Subsequent overture were not taken up, the new girl believing that I had no interest in being friends with her. While my classmates often behaved cruelly, there was no malice involved that day: they simply, genuinely believed that I had no desire for friendshio. That hurt as badly as losing the new girl’s potential friendship did.

Teachers are just as likely to make this  ’loner’ assumption as a student. I attended high school for five years, during which time the learning support coordinator worked closely with me regarding several ongoing issues. Upon my graduation my mother expressed the fact that my one real regret, now that I was leaving, was my lack of friends. The learning support coordinator responded with surprise; after all, I had been offered the hand of friendship numerous times, so she had simply assumed that I had no interest in becoming friends with anyone.

On being informed of this conversation, I was absolutely devastated. The fact that someone who knew me as well as this woman did, and who was as educated in Aspergers Syndrome as she was, could mistake my obliviousness of social overtures and inability to respond appropriately to them, and my need for ‘time out’ from the rigours of class in a quiet relaxing environment during the lunch break, for a simple lack of interest in friendship said terrible things about anyone else being likely to realise that I craved companionship.

Which brings me to the third point of discussion of this post: the sensory oversensitivity/companionship paradox. I have always been enormously oversensitive to stimuli,  in a way that is near-impossible to describe. I cannot stand thigns that are too bright, or too loud, or that feel wrong or sound horrible. Much sensation is overpowering. As a child I could not stand hugs; it felt almost painful. People learned not to tickle me: I would scream, and kick and hit and bite, lashing out instinctively. The sensation of being tickled was so unbearable it was akin to great pain.

These days it is not obvious to most how much stress my surroundings put on me. As I write this, I am seated in a university library. There is no talking. No loud noise. By normal standards, it is amazingly quiet. Yet I hear every tap of a keyboard key, every click of a pen or rasp of paper, as tohugh it is next to my ear. I am aware of the sound of the air-conditioning system, the creak of a chair, a long exhalation. I hear someone open their bag, or zip something closed. I hear soft footfalls o nthe carpeted floor. At the same time, I am acutely aware of the brightness of the unnatural flourescent lights, and the way they flicker constantly, distressingly, almost too fast to percieve. The smooth feel of the desk against my arms, the pull of my hair tie holding my hair in place – even the feel of the oil naturally produced by my skin being pressed against the skin by the nose pads on my glasses.

I am acutely aware of everything. And this is in one of the most unstimulating, quietest environments I have known. The mere presence of other people- the sounds and scents of them, their presence in my personal space – can be awful. It is stressful to be around people without even interacting with them.

Interacting with them on top of that? Much worse. I don’t follow something as simply as a conversation intuitively, as most people do. Every social interaction is like a game of chess: is it their turn to speak yet? Is it mine? What are they feeling? How should I reply to what they said? Should I respond to their tone of voice and body language or their words?Is there subtext going on?  (I talk a little about the difficulties of subtext in this post.) Is my body language appropriate to the content and emotional tone of this conversation?   And so on. Every little judgement needs to be analysed before beign made, and that’s just a basic ‘hi, how are you going?’ kind of scenario. It’s exhausting. By lunch break every day when I was still in school, I would be on the edge of collapse from the combination of sensory stimulation and navigating even simple social exchanges that occurred during class time. I couldn’t possibly face heavy-duty social analysis at lunch. Thus, I missed the predominant opportunity for social bonding and the forming of friendships.

Just because an Asperger person keeps to themselves does not mean that they do not want friends or social interactions, and it is important for people dealing with Asperger people to understand that.

Being unable to make friends because of being shunned is an entirely different issue that I mention only briefly here; right now I have stuck more or less to the fallacy of the loner stereotype and understanding what is behind it.