Post by Honda Miyuki on Sept 23, 2018 2:52:43 GMT
So, I’m not even sure how to wrap my head around the latest development in a social situation that I’m dealing with. I’m going to explain it, but name everyone by their first initials because I don’t think anyone overlaps with that.
I talked to this guy, A, at a get together for a peer mentor group designed for students on the autism spectrum. I’m not a mentor and I’m not technically on the autism spectrum because of my weird hung jury aspbergers diagnoses years ago when aspbergers was still a category (long story). But regardless, the lady who runs it is a family friend and I grew up with her son so I do stuff with the group.
So A comes to sit with me and my friend B one day(another friend of ours was there, but I don’t think he was really bothered by anything that happened). A said some things that essentially sent B into a miniature panic attack. It wouldn’t be obvious to the untrained eye, but I can tell when he’s freaking out. I think he was being too sensitive in this case since the comment about people who like the Star Wars Holiday special deserving to be punched in the face doesn’t apply to him since he doesn’t even like the Star Wars holiday special. But regardless, that kind of thing makes him panic. I have no idea why. Then again, my skin is apparantly thicker than most.
A day or two later, A sat with me again when I was with B and E. After B left for class, he pulled E aside and basically said “that’s the guy I was talking about.” Well let’s just say A said a few things that made E decide they needed to resort to physically intimidating him. E isn’t an intimidating looking person, they are smaller than I am. But holy crap can E be scary. I wanted to melt in my chair. Essentially, A called E’s ex a “boyfriend” when she is a trans girl and almost said something disparaging about another friend of ours who is a trans girl before being cut off by E (we both thought it was said friend’s birth name, which is something that’s really rude. We both happen to know what it is, but that’s because the three of us went off campus to the pharmacy to pick up her prescription since we didn’t want to hang on campus for the active shooter drill in which students were being instructed to stand in a group around a fountain- which one of my classmates likened to creating a human shooting range. But it’s still not polite to reveal that sort of personal info). This made E feel very unsafe since they are trans themselves. And my head is about melting at this point because I’m not sure if A knows a lot about transgender people. And people who don’t really know a lot tend to say insensitive things about it. And I don’t know how to say that maybe it’s unintentional. And then I think “We’ll, you have been dismissive of transphobia before” and then I think “That’s because those people were ignorant and sort of brainwashed.” Oh and have I mentioned that I’m admittedly poorly educated about transgender people? That makes my head spin even more.
A few days later, I’m eating with B and our friend H. A makes some rude comment about how I sound like a very annoying YouTuber from the old days of YouTube, which did anger me and I might have not been nice about it. My voice is and was hoarse from a cold. Regardless, I excused myself as soon as possible after essentially saying not cool (my friends thought it was sort of funny that of all the things to anger me, it was THAT. I am angered by weirdly specific things honestly). I removed myself from the situation quickly and I don’t know what else happened, but apparently H wanted to punch him in the face by the end of it (she’s too nice to do that though, I think).
So, my friends are basically like “We have to somehow tell him we don’t want him around us anymore.” And I’m sort of mentally freaking out because I’m not quite sure if he quite gets that the things he says are not good because he is on the autism spectrum. But even though I trust my friends, I just can’t go around revealing information about the other person. And it isn’t an excuse for these things, but I don’t want them to not be accepting of it because I hate when people are mean to autistic people for things they can’t help.
But I can’t tell them what I know (okay I word vomited it at B when we were eating dinner two or so days ago, but still). Having a reputation for being clueless really pays off sometimes because i can just act like I don’t remember how I know and it’s believable.
So, I decide to talk to a girl I’ve met through the program, J, about A since she knows him better. We were going to meet up sometime last week, but she was sick. Well, it turns out B is also friends with J (which I didn’t know, I knew he had a friend with the same name, turns out to be the same girl) and they are eating dinner tomorrow night and apparently J unknowingly invited A along. A saw B this afternoon and basically told him as much. So B is now probably freaking out about this.
And I’m just not even sure if this is a rant or what I should even make of this situation anymore. I feel like whatever I do, it is going to end up not being nice to someone. I’ll have to see if I can meet up with J before dinner tomorrow. Or I’ll just casually “run into them” (B willl know exactly what’s up, but oh well). Then again if I do, what the heck am I supposed to do if anything happens?
I’d usually ask my mom, but she’s so stressed dealing with wacked out family drama. And I don’t even know if she’s have an answer honestly.
These sort of things are really tricky 😓. I admittedly learned most of my social navigation skills through books and my mom. Neither has ever addressed anything like this.
I talked to this guy, A, at a get together for a peer mentor group designed for students on the autism spectrum. I’m not a mentor and I’m not technically on the autism spectrum because of my weird hung jury aspbergers diagnoses years ago when aspbergers was still a category (long story). But regardless, the lady who runs it is a family friend and I grew up with her son so I do stuff with the group.
So A comes to sit with me and my friend B one day(another friend of ours was there, but I don’t think he was really bothered by anything that happened). A said some things that essentially sent B into a miniature panic attack. It wouldn’t be obvious to the untrained eye, but I can tell when he’s freaking out. I think he was being too sensitive in this case since the comment about people who like the Star Wars Holiday special deserving to be punched in the face doesn’t apply to him since he doesn’t even like the Star Wars holiday special. But regardless, that kind of thing makes him panic. I have no idea why. Then again, my skin is apparantly thicker than most.
A day or two later, A sat with me again when I was with B and E. After B left for class, he pulled E aside and basically said “that’s the guy I was talking about.” Well let’s just say A said a few things that made E decide they needed to resort to physically intimidating him. E isn’t an intimidating looking person, they are smaller than I am. But holy crap can E be scary. I wanted to melt in my chair. Essentially, A called E’s ex a “boyfriend” when she is a trans girl and almost said something disparaging about another friend of ours who is a trans girl before being cut off by E (we both thought it was said friend’s birth name, which is something that’s really rude. We both happen to know what it is, but that’s because the three of us went off campus to the pharmacy to pick up her prescription since we didn’t want to hang on campus for the active shooter drill in which students were being instructed to stand in a group around a fountain- which one of my classmates likened to creating a human shooting range. But it’s still not polite to reveal that sort of personal info). This made E feel very unsafe since they are trans themselves. And my head is about melting at this point because I’m not sure if A knows a lot about transgender people. And people who don’t really know a lot tend to say insensitive things about it. And I don’t know how to say that maybe it’s unintentional. And then I think “We’ll, you have been dismissive of transphobia before” and then I think “That’s because those people were ignorant and sort of brainwashed.” Oh and have I mentioned that I’m admittedly poorly educated about transgender people? That makes my head spin even more.
A few days later, I’m eating with B and our friend H. A makes some rude comment about how I sound like a very annoying YouTuber from the old days of YouTube, which did anger me and I might have not been nice about it. My voice is and was hoarse from a cold. Regardless, I excused myself as soon as possible after essentially saying not cool (my friends thought it was sort of funny that of all the things to anger me, it was THAT. I am angered by weirdly specific things honestly). I removed myself from the situation quickly and I don’t know what else happened, but apparently H wanted to punch him in the face by the end of it (she’s too nice to do that though, I think).
So, my friends are basically like “We have to somehow tell him we don’t want him around us anymore.” And I’m sort of mentally freaking out because I’m not quite sure if he quite gets that the things he says are not good because he is on the autism spectrum. But even though I trust my friends, I just can’t go around revealing information about the other person. And it isn’t an excuse for these things, but I don’t want them to not be accepting of it because I hate when people are mean to autistic people for things they can’t help.
But I can’t tell them what I know (okay I word vomited it at B when we were eating dinner two or so days ago, but still). Having a reputation for being clueless really pays off sometimes because i can just act like I don’t remember how I know and it’s believable.
So, I decide to talk to a girl I’ve met through the program, J, about A since she knows him better. We were going to meet up sometime last week, but she was sick. Well, it turns out B is also friends with J (which I didn’t know, I knew he had a friend with the same name, turns out to be the same girl) and they are eating dinner tomorrow night and apparently J unknowingly invited A along. A saw B this afternoon and basically told him as much. So B is now probably freaking out about this.
And I’m just not even sure if this is a rant or what I should even make of this situation anymore. I feel like whatever I do, it is going to end up not being nice to someone. I’ll have to see if I can meet up with J before dinner tomorrow. Or I’ll just casually “run into them” (B willl know exactly what’s up, but oh well). Then again if I do, what the heck am I supposed to do if anything happens?
I’d usually ask my mom, but she’s so stressed dealing with wacked out family drama. And I don’t even know if she’s have an answer honestly.
These sort of things are really tricky 😓. I admittedly learned most of my social navigation skills through books and my mom. Neither has ever addressed anything like this.