On 4/20/2008, I went to meet a girl I’d met in the casual encounters section of craigslist. org. Her name was francesca, we’d never met before, never even spoke on the phone, however we did chat online, and exchange pictures. She’d known me for maybe 1 week before we met up, but she and I were both pretty anxious to get together.
So, I gussied myself up in my favorite shirt and pants, made myself look the best I could, and took the afternoon metra train out to her place in suburbs. Of course I was a little nervous, and a little anxious as well, I tried to throw logic at myself, and told myself ‘if you don’t think positively of yourself nobody will think positively of you’, however it was still being offset by the fact that I believed I would be blown off by that girl, and due to go home depressed for another day.
I eventually arrived in her house, and was my usual, quiet self. She was talkative, and I only responded to what she was saying. That’s one problem I have, I never bring up new subjects with strangers. Possibly because I recognize I don’t think about normal things, and that I believe certain people might take offense.
Well, I sat there in her living room, we talked a bit, smoked a little, and then we realized that our lighters were dead. No problem, there’s a party store a few blocks from her apartment. So, we walk over there, buy lighters, walk back to her apartment.
Then when we got to her apartment, sat back down, smoked, and I began to have strange cravings for orange soda, but i never mentioned them. Then, she just broke out of nowhere and asked “So um, what’s the matter dude?”, “what? nothing, what’s wrong?”, “you’re just acting kind of weird… um… do you know what aspergers disorder is?”.
This one line took grip in my mind. “what? uhh uhhh uhhhh no… no i don’t think i have that. um… i don’t know” I replied. Quickly, my mind began to degrade towards the worst feeling in the world. I’d been accused of having a mental disorder by a date. She then got a phone call from her friend, and she actually began describing me to him. Out loud. As I began to break into an anxiety attack, as she spoke to him, She would eventually get off the phone. I was still in shock from the amateur diagnoses I had been given, as I know people who havs aspergers, and it’s definitely not something that I am comfortable having.
She got off the phone, and we just had a short conversation about what’s wrong with me, and I began to unravel. Of couse I’m high, she is too, but I just began to rant obsessively about what was happening, when she suddenly kissed me, and the afternoon was on from there.
If she hadn’t kissed me, and nothing had happened, I would have probably gone home and killed myself that day.
We would end up meeting a few more times, had a good time, but eventually she lost interest in me, and we haven’t seen each other for a few months now.
Then, several weeks later I was standing in the kitchen with my roommate allison, and she accused me of having the disorder as I well. This, and francesca’s prior accusation combined in my mind, and slowly began to re-degrade me. Yeah, I got laid immediately after being accused by francesca, but I’m never going to have sex with allison, so there’s no way to undo the effect of what she said.
If you think you know someone who has a psychological disorder, don’t tell them about it. Especially if it’s a disorder that’ll affect how that person acts in social situations. Just don’t. It was pretty obvious to me that something’s wrong with my mind before either of these women knew me, It’s probably obvious to the friend that you think has the same disorder. By diagnosing us out loud, you are essentially rushing us to figure out what’s wrong, which is likely to cause even more problems for us.
