Part 2 - Doubting yourself and where that gets you...

The easy answer to the title is of course, nowhere. The slightly more realistic answer to the title is, a pile of questions you don't (and in my case can't) know the answer to.
Armed with my new knowledge and my questions, I decided to go back and talk to the man in the shirt and tie and also a woman who also wore a shirt but who's tie was conspicuously absent. The thing they said to me changed everything, like someone had finally used the clutch to try and changed gears for once.
They told me about the 'everyone is different' issue but then explained to me that I was considered a special case even within my own little special new graph. As a general rule, they said, people who have aspergers tend to be diagnosed early in life (as in before they were 10) and as a result have that to hold on to (or hold you back as the case may be). I of course did not have this. I was diagnosed at 28 years old. What I did have is an 80s childhood in what most would consider one of the rougher, less privileged outer suburbs of Adelaide named Salisbury. Now I certainly had never heard of autism or aspergers as a kid and I'm pretty sure that my parents had never heard of them either, it was something of an age of ignorance to a syndrome that quite frankly is still not properly understood today. And so I do not blame my folks for not seeking the answers it took me so long to look for myself. Instead of a kid who has aspergers what they saw was this.

These are actual quotes from my parents...

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Don't you realise what it feels like to have someone do that to you?"
"He's just really quiet and well behaved, he doesn't bother anyone, just sits in his room and reads, draws, and plays by himself all day."
"We can't send him to his room to be alone as punishment, he enjoys that too much!"

And this one from my grandmother...

"You're a very odd child and I can not handle watching you eat. Go eat in the other room by yourself so that I don't have to look at you."

Now, these probably sound mean, and when they are said to a kid that has aspergers they are kind of are, but they didn't know that I had it. They thought they were talking to a kid that "was being weird to get attention". 
Salisbury is the home of the Holden Commodore that has a mismatched panel, the Escort reds, the mullet hair cut, the stubbies short, the bonds singlet and the black as night ACDC shirt. To say that I struggled to find my niche would be an understatement of grand proportions, so I was forced to adapt in order to survive the bullying that was to come. Adapting is the least natural thing you could possibly ask someone on the spectrum to do... 
But I didn't know that I was on the spectrum yet.
Survival instincts started to kick in, and even though inside my own head I had to wrestle with every single thing I did in public, I fought back. I figured out little ways that I could do the things I needed to do to keep my brain from leaping out of my skull in frustration. I built walls that would protect me against those who I just could not understand (everyone). I developed a security blanket based sense of humour that would allow me to laugh and shake things off that no 8 year old should ever have to deal with. I spent my lunch times listening to music that the other kids had not heard of on a walkman by myself.
And then... well then I started to play sports.

To be continued... 

Part 1 - All the colours of the spectrum

Normal is a distribution, it is an average. 
Imagine if you will a graph, where average is represented as a straight line in the middle and how "normal" you are is based on how close you are to this line. 
Are you doing it? Where do you imagine yourself on that graph?
I figured out (many years ago now) that I was nowhere near this line, not even close to it, and it became something of a troubling thought in my head. One that I spent years and years on. A cloud had formed and I found myself trapped under it, unable to even imagine a way out.
Why do I feel so different?
How can I fix it?
What am I doing wrong?
Why does this stuff seem so much easier for everyone else?
Now I'm sure that everyone at some point has asked themselves at least one of these questions, and I do not wish to make anyone feel like their problems are not as important as mine, but there was a point where I was asking myself all of these questions at the same time... Every single day. Some might call this a rut, some might call it depression, others might think of it as a routine. I really didn't know what the hell to call it, to me it was just my reality.
There eventually came a time when these questions just became too much and too hard for me to deal with, so I went searching... I was 28 years old, and I had never talked to anyone about the way I had been feeling before.
What I found was a new graph, called the spectrum, where there was no such thing as the word normal.
I found out that the reason I felt different was because I am different. Something in my brain works in a different way to the way yours does, it changes the way I learn, the way I store and retrieve information, and in certain situations even enables me (or prevents me) from doing things that others might find hard (or of course ridiculously simple). A man in a shirt and tie told me that I have high functioning aspergers syndrome. To which I responded with ...huh.
All my life I had felt different, and then a doctor said that it's because I was.
Aspergers and autism and anything else that falls on this spectrum can be a very difficult thing to explain to people. There is no normal for this graph because everyone really is different, two people with aspergers can be completely different from each other in the way that it has manifested. As an example imagine a rainbow or colour chart that is on the floor and imagine that on that chart aspergers is the colour red. Two people standing within that red section, both of them are diagnosed with aspergers syndrome, but they do not share the same space on the floor, one of them is standing in vermillion, while the other stands in crimson. The same, but different.
They do not really explain this to you, you have to figure it out for yourself.
So I started reading about aspergers syndrome, to try and understand myself a little bit better, research will fix everything right? Well, no, I was wrong about that too. When I read up about it I felt like parts of what they said were right while others were way off, as a result I started to doubt it, and by extension, I started to doubt myself.

To be continued... (I did title it part 1)

Not like the others

I'm built differently to most boys, although to look at me you may not be able to see it. I know in the greater sense we are all different and unique and special and blah fucking blah, blah... But some of us a more different than others.
It has been my experience that most dudes of the fella persuasion feel the need to prove themselves, now the problem with this is that for the most part they can't always think of a constructive way to do this, as a result they tend to try and prove themselves by dominating another dude. It's basic and animalistic and it's nothing more than macho fucking bullshit. I'm getting a bit fucking tired of the whole thing to be honest. As a general rule I don't participate in it, I mean I try and prove myself but I've always tried to do that through actions and sincerity. And usually when there is another guy who is trying to assert himself in the alpha dog position I am perfectly happy for them to take up whatever position makes them happy, even if it means looking "weak" to others, what do I care, I'm secure in who I am. There are times however, when I get pushed too far, and I am dragged back into the bullshit, everyone has a limit to the amount of shit that they will allow to be hung on them. Every time it happens I end up feeling petty and hating myself a little bit. The problem is, it has been happening a bit too frequently these past few weeks. As part of my New Freddie experiment I have been making a concerted effort to be more outgoing, which has led to some new friendships, with some truly incredible and special people and I can only hope that these people feel the same way about me as I do them. 
One of these people is Little t, he is a smart guy, with a good heart who will be the first to tell you he has seen some shit, in fact you may not be able to stop him from telling you. He is someone who constantly wants to be the alpha dog, he loves the attention, he feeds off of it, like his ego has an appetite. Now for the most part, Little t and I get on great, the only problem is that he is a button pusher, not just with me, with everyone. I'm not sure why, it's not one of the things that I have ever really understood, I guess he's one of those people that likes to get reactions out of people. Like I said I'm different and I don't understand some things. But button pushing is something that I have never really been a big fan of, and I don't really have many buttons that can be pushed, so I guess I am pretty protective of the ones I do have.

For the record - Buttons that do not work on me...

My mother (insult her all you want, fuck I care)
My manhood or (lack of) size of my package
Homosexuality (not afraid of it, kissed a dude once, did nothing for me)
My intelligence
My lack of proficiency with the ladies (I will often joke about this one myself)
The implication that I am whipped
My ability to drink alcohol at a specific rate
My sporting prowess
My knowledge of cars and other symbols of masculinity
Anyway I think you get the point...

Buttons that do work on me...

Food and things related to my consumption of it
Homophobia
Racism
The questioning/doubting of my current relationship (or the girl that is a part of said relationship)

There may be more for each list but these are the ones that came to me as I was writing.

So anyway, Little t has decided that for the last couple of weeks he would combine his alpha dog, button pushing, one upsmanship, macho thing as a result of feeling pretty good about himself (I say decided but the truth of the matter is that it's probably just nature and the was no actual deciding in it whatsoever) and just due to proximity I have been taking most of the brunt of the (I can't think of a better word) assault. I have not always risen to the occasion and I have at times lashed out, making us both look petty and frankly a bit fucking stupid. The most annoying part of it is all of my weaker moments keep happening in front of Leisa and I really feel like I am letting myself down in that regard...

This is something I need to work on, I will add it to my list.

An endless game

I'm the kind that loves too easily she says, and she is not completely wrong. I'm an intensely passionate guy and when I find myself attracted to someone I rarely think about holding back. Why the fuck should I? If not now, when... Some might think this is a weakness but I like to think of it as a strength. I like to think that rather than stupid, I am brave. I'm optimistic, rather than a fool.

Recently a girl, let's call her Leisa (no one will be able to crack that code,) has captured my attention in just such a way, captivating my head and my heart at the same time, no mean trick let me tell you. And honestly I could not tell you how long this will last, it could all end tomorrow. Somehow it seems safe and tenuous all at the same time. But right now it feels pretty fucking great. I have fallen for girls before of course, but this feels different and new, and exciting. Part of this is because a while ago I made a decision to make a change in myself, something that comes as a bit of a struggle for me to be honest. I'm a different version of myself and there's a lot that is new, or at least feels it. The other part of it is the girl herself, never before have I ever dated a girl who was so independent, so sure of who she is and so willful in the guarding of these two things. She is in short, the type of girl I have always wanted to be with. But exactly the type of girl I have no experience with, so I find myself a bit caught off guard sometimes.

Let me just provide a little bit of an insight into what I mean here, because I tend to think in a slightly different way to most folk. (Now I am aware that revealing the information that I am about to will further enhance the 'weirdo' label I get but fuck it.) Sometimes, particularly with girls that I like (but not exclusively), I think of conversations like a game of chess. As in, I try and think a few moves ahead and make (for lack of a better word) conversational strategies.

Yes I know, I am a weirdo.

The problem with this approach is that I have never known a girl like Leisa before, so when she makes her 'chess' move and it is not one of the possibilities I had imagined in my head, because it never is, then I have to go off book. And my brain has been so busy thinking up my next move to endless other possible moves that when one arrives that I have not planned for... Well, it panics. It stops working altogether and I end up spurting out whatever is actually in my head without censoring, without hiding the bat shit crazy. This is what I mean when I say caught off guard. The conversation then ends up in a stupid place that nobody had wanted it to go and I'm left like a car crash survivor, just trying to sort out how I got here.

The thing that I have realized though is that I love that she catches me off guard, I love that I don't know what is going to happen next. It's a little bit thrilling and stupid and fun. I have never felt this fun or free in my life. I have spent most of it trapped in my own mind, kidding myself about how much enjoyment I wasn't missing out on, because I was scared to shake things up. I'm still scared but I'm shaking anyway, and for a while now it has been a real struggle, but every day it gets a tiny microscopic bit easier. And I'm a bit more free.

What is wrong with me?

A random creative writing exercise... What is the worst thing you have ever done to someone, or had done to you. I decided to not dress it up, just throw down the facts and see how they looked, apparently they look like this.

Whenever it came up in conversation, I would always lie. I would say that it was an accident. I knew the truth of course, and I’m pretty sure they did too, otherwise why would it come up in conversation as often as it did. People don’t say things like “hey, you remember that time you were a massive prick?” unless they want you to know that they haven’t forgotten about it. That phrase, or some variation of it, seems to be the favourite theme of my mother as the years pass by. And she wonders why I don’t visit her as much as I used to do. On this specific occasion though, she was talking about the time that I pushed my little brother through a window that does not open. Now when I say through, I do not mean he hit the window and the glass broke, I mean he was outside, he was pushed, and then he was inside. Through a window that does not open.

This is the part of the story where I try to explain the situation, try and twist things around so that I can still be a good and decent guy, right? Wrong. Go back and read those first 2 sentences again. I did it. I pushed him. I’m not going to justify my actions, I’m not going to tell you whether or not he deserved it. I will tell you that he was not hurt, somehow he was not even scratched, but none of that matters. I will tell you that after I did it, I laughed. He sat there in his bedroom with his mouth open and his eyes unable to blink, surrounded by shards of glass, as I pointed and laughed like some sort of hysterical comic book villain. This was the very first time I remember hearing the words “What the fuck is wrong with you?”