Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian With Practical Advice for Aspergians, Misfits, Families & Teachers (6 page)

First of all, when in a strange social situation, I watch the others and do as they do
. This applies to wearing a suit, handling silverware, eating food, going through doorways, and many other situations. I do a lot better when I watch, wait, and imitate. My grandfather taught me this.

When I speak in casual conversation, I try to start a mental clock in my head
. I actually learned this from Marty Nemko, a San Francisco career coach. He told me, “For the first thirty seconds after you start talking, imagine a green light in your head. After thirty seconds the light turns yellow. At sixty seconds, it’s red.” That’s a good piece of advice for most any conversational situation. It takes some mental energy to monitor myself, but it works.

I used to feel that I should say everything as soon as I got a chance to talk, because my contacts with people were so fleeting. After all, I might never get the chance to talk to them again. Today, I realize that my contacts were fleeting because I went on and on, bored people silly, and
ran them off. It was a sad day when I finally realized that most people do not care about the 66,000-horsepower MAN B&W diesel engines in the big American President Lines containerships. The world is just filled with important and fascinating facts, yet nypical people just choose to remain indifferent. So I stopped running on at the mouth, or at least I try to.

I’ve learned to say “please” and “thank you” fairly often
. That’s a simple rule that delivers good results. I don’t always remember to do this, but I know should. There’s nothing false or objectionable about “please” and “thanks.” Even if I don’t like someone, I can thank him for handing me the hammer, and I can say, “Please move over so I can get past you.” Those words just make things smoother. People seldom refuse to step aside when asked, and shoving them out of the way without asking almost always leads to a bad outcome, unless you are at a sporting event where manners are not used.

Manners mavens often advise us to go beyond “please” and “thanks,” to actually make up nice things about the other person. For example, they suggest things like, “Susan, your dress looks lovely tonight!” I don’t usually follow that advice, because I think it results in conversation that’s shallow and contrived as people trade fake compliments and false smiles. Some of my relatives act like that, and it aggravates me to no end because I can’t ever trust what they are saying. How can I tell if they really mean something, or if they just made it up for the sake of conversation?

Then there’s the matter of “polite” clothing.…

Nowadays, when I go somewhere, I try to find out how people will be dressed before I go there so that I can put on appropriate clothes
. In my antisocial days, dress didn’t matter, because I was an outcast everywhere. Now, when I join social groups, I realize it’s a lot easier to fit in if I’m dressed in a style that’s at least generally compatible with that of the other people. Also, I never go out in public in my underwear.

That simplified code of manners may not seem like much, but it transformed my social life. Today people invite me to events and parties and then invite me back again. Given my social standing in high school, that’s something to be proud of. And I accomplish it all with a minimum of posturing and false behavior, and just a little compromise of efficiency.

When I first began studying manners, as a teenager, I assumed they were nothing more than a code of behavior written by and for self-serving adults. From my perspective, therefore, they were pretty much useless. Now, years later, I understand that manners are a code of behavior that makes life smoother and better for all of us. There are times when I am inconvenienced, like when I hold a door for ten people, but at other times I am paid back when strangers do the same for me. I can’t always foresee how kindness and consideration will pay off, but they usually do. I believe that because of my manners, strangers observe me and make subconscious decisions to be nice, just
as other strangers in earlier years had observed and rejected me as an ill-mannered child. When I act politely, I build a reserve of goodwill in others. That reserve allows those people to cut me some slack when I do something annoying.

And believe me, I’m no paragon of well-mannered manhood. To be honest, I’m often rude and sloppy. But I am a thousand percent better than I was before I set out to be polite, and the effect it’s had on my social life has been phenomenal.

B
y the time I entered high school I was sold on the logical and sensible parts of manners and behavior, but I had some problems accepting why I should do some of the bigger behavioral things, like staying enrolled in school.

In tenth grade I knew kids like me were supposed to graduate from high school and go to college. I loved computers and electronics, so I naturally imagined myself becoming an engineer. Yet even with that dream secured, it was difficult for me to see a clear path from high school through college to professional engineerhood in my head. There were just too many problems. My home life was awful, with a drunken father and a mentally ill mother. And I
didn’t seem to be able to focus on what my teachers wanted. Class sucked, so I spent my days in the school Audio Visual Center instead. I even skipped classes to be there. When they threw me out, I hung out downtown. And why shouldn’t I? After all, the Hungry U and Augie’s Newsstand were far more interesting than the school library. I skipped whole days of school to do that.

When I skipped school, I got a chance to spend more time with the musicians I had started meeting through my budding skill with electronics. Some kids learned to play instruments; I taught myself to fix them. The more of a failure I became in school, the more rewarding that work became.

The problem was partly me and partly the school itself. When I did go to class, I never had it together. I hadn’t even begun my homework; and I didn’t pay attention on tests. No one from the school ever stepped up to get me back on track, so I continued on a downward spiral. I became a wise guy, constantly in trouble. If I didn’t get sent to the office for discipline, I sent myself to the nurse’s office for a nap. The result of all that was predictable—a report card of straight Fs. That led to my second year of tenth grade, and the realization that I was not college material.

“You can still graduate,” my guidance counselor said.
But I doubted his sincerity as I watched the prospect of graduation, let alone college, receding into the distance. I became convinced high school would never end.

Why bother?

I made a list in my mind. School totally sucked. My first and only girlfriend had just dumped me. I hardly had any other friends. I wasn’t getting a thing out of class. No one wanted me there. There was no good reason to be in school. Looking back, I realize that I was very sad at that time, and probably depressed. But I was rational, and I considered my next move carefully.

The world outside was full of opportunity. I was doing more and more work for local musicians, and I could probably join a band full-time. I could probably get work fixing cars, as a mechanic. There were other things I could do, too, like drive a truck or run farm machinery. I was already doing small jobs for people and getting paid. There were days when I had sixty, even ninety dollars in my pocket. When that happened, I felt like a really rich man.

Measured against those tangible prospects, the idea of slogging through high school and then getting accepted at a college and doing it all again for four more years just seemed unreal. The first problem was the humiliation I’d face when every other tenth grader besides me became an eleventh grader.
How many other kids flunked school?
I wondered. I could not imagine three more years of high school.

“Success depends on you,” the teachers said. “You have to change your ways. No more cutting classes. And you
have to buckle down and do the work.” Teachers always said that with a sneer, as if they were taunting me with some unattainable goal.

Today’s teachers would have sent me for testing and special-needs evaluation. In 1970, though, that constructive step was some ways into the future. And I have to admit: I looked lazy. I acted surly. I’m sure I played the part of an angry, disaffected, sullen teen perfectly, because I was one. But that wasn’t the only reason for my struggle, or my behavior. In fact, it was the behavior that got me through the day.

The thing was, cutting classes and acting up was the only thing that made school bearable. How could I stop? If I’d had the ability to “buckle down” I’d have done it years before. I knew the value of knowledge, but I assumed I could learn anything I needed on my own in the libraries and labs at the university. Besides, I was sure I knew more than enough anyway.

If I had blown my chance at college, and I could educate myself, why was I staying at Amherst Regional?

“Why should I stay?” I asked my guidance counselor that question over and over. There didn’t seem to be an answer. In fact, one particularly worthless guidance counselor said, “Look, if you drop out you are going to end up a loser pumping gas somewhere. Even the Army won’t
take high school dropouts now!” That did it for me. I could get that kind of criticism at home, for free, from my father anytime. If the best they could do was cheap threats, I was outta there.

I dropped out, or got thrown out, depending on your perspective, at age sixteen. One thing was sure: By the time I left, they didn’t want me, and I didn’t want them. It was good riddance on both sides.

It felt good to be out of school, though it was also rather scary. People said, “You’re an adult now,” and I quickly realized what that really meant:
Get a job or starve
. I did whatever I could to make money at first, fixing cars and guitar amplifiers and anything else I could scrounge.

At the same time, I tried to make sense of the grown-up world I now inhabited. Most of the stuff older people suggested or ordered or demanded I do now that I was an “adult” seemed totally foolish and pointless. Good manners. Button-up shirts and clean pants. Brushing and cutting my hair. Cleaning up my language. “How is any of that stuff going to make me happier or better off?” I would ask, but the answers never satisfied me. What’s in it for me? No one could ever answer that.

“It’s rude to swear in a restaurant,” my grandmother said. So what? Why should I care if I’m rude? “You look like a wild man with that hair,” she continued. But why should that matter to me? I wasn’t looking at me, I didn’t have any friends around, and my grandmother liked me no matter how I looked. People’s demands were just annoying, and really self-centered. They complained about
my behavior because they wanted
me
to change to make
them
feel better. It was all about the other people, not me.

A few years passed, and I established myself in the working world. I made some money, and sustained some damage but came through alive and kicking. Through it all, I remained stubbornly independent. I dressed like I wanted, grew a beard and long hair, and kept pretty much to myself.
Nobody’s going to tell me how to dress, talk, and act
, I thought.
And I am going to prove all those people who said I was a loser wrong. Especially my father
.

By the time I turned eighteen, I’d made a name for myself as the electronics wizard for local musicians. I was self-supporting and on my own—I lived with the guys from the band Fat. Social success still eluded me, but my technical abilities helped me make a living and gain some respect in the process. People said I was weird, but when it came to music and electronics, they also said I knew what I was talking about. That’s how things stood—right up to the day I met the girl.

I’d been alone for a good while, since getting dumped in high school. I did my work, rode my motorcycle, ate, and slept. That was pretty much it. Every night I’d sit at my sound board and watch people pair up as my band played; that’s what nightclubs were for. Our music set the scene really well for the audience, but somehow what worked for them never worked for me. I wished it would,
but it never did. I was beginning to think the bad things people had said about me as a kid might really be true. The demons had followed me out of school and into adulthood. If you wanted to sum me up in two words, these are what they’d be: sad and lonely.

It was in the midst of that sadness that she appeared. I’d seen her a few times before, when we played the Rusty Nail. She was a little shorter than me, pretty, with short brown hair that curled inward at the ends, and dark eyes. I’d come to recognize a lot of girls that came to our shows, but none of them ever paid any attention to me. Until then. This one walked over and talked to me. I was shocked, captivated, and intimidated all at once.

I talked to guys every day. There were the guys in the band, and the guys in the bars and clubs where we played. There were dudes in stores and gas stations and even the cops and bouncers who guarded the door everyplace we played. Somehow, talking to them didn’t ease my loneliness. I wanted someone special, someone to really share my life. I wanted a girlfriend.

But as much as I hoped to find love, I had no idea where or how to look. Until suddenly, when she stood in front of me, saying, “That looks really interesting. Can you show me how it works?” She wasn’t a girlfriend—not yet—but she was a girl. And she was interested in me. I was so amazed that I can’t remember a word of what we said, but I will never forget that first night. Would I ever
see her again? I couldn’t stop thinking about her on the ride back home, and I thought of her all the next day. And she did return, to sit with me and talk all night.

I watched her closely, and listened to everything she said. She was a nursing student at the university. She was five years older than me, pretty and sophisticated and smart, and to my great amazement, she was remarkably interested in me. How long would it last? I began thinking about what I’d heard. It was time for action.

The next day, I washed all my clothes, even the socks and underwear. I put on my least-perforated blue jeans. I got the scissors from the toolbox and cut my hair. Suddenly, all the things my grandmother had said made sense. I did not want to look like a fright. I did not want to sound like a drunken sailor. I did not want to smell bad. I wanted her to be impressed, and I did everything I could think of to make that happen.