I’m not sure if this the ‘tism or self-confidence issue or just plain ole social anxiety, but I really hold myself back in social situations. Personally I don’t believe it’s due to a lack of self-confidence as I’m very secure in my own skin and my own identity. At work you’ll see me in hot pink dress pants or wearing my kilt as a form of self expression. I bring this up because there is this cute girl at the yoga class that I routinely go to that I’ve been talking to and getting to know better. Come to find out that we have some interests in common and the conversations come pretty naturally (at least I perceive them to be with my kinda normalish levels of stuttering). Awhile back we somehow got on the topic of woodworking and I mentioned that I normally wax my wood off to completion as I like the finish. What I meant to say is that I rub my wood down with bees wax. Wait let me try this again, I mentioned that I use wax on my projects due to the simple nature of the finish and ease of maintenance. I told her about the store I buy my supplies from hosts various classes to learn new skills and she seemed interested in the classes.

Fast forward to April of 2024 and I get the harebrained idea to try and ask her to one of the classes to play with my wood, I mean play with wood, wait I mean make something out of wood. A portion of this harebrained idea was to motivate myself back into creativity and focus on my mental health. I know most of my mental health struggles come from a lack of participating in my outlets (writing, painting, gardening, exercising, model building, and playing card games) and this usually occurs when the alleged “work/life balance” swings more so towards work. For me at least, I relate work/life balance on the amount of mental capacity that I need to give up to accommodate my tasks as work. At this time I work a regular corporate bank job with a primary focus on sales. With my new therapist we’ve been working on incorporating what is known as the “spoon theory” into my daily routine and mental space. Spoon theory is best described as looking at your entire mental capacity as a handful of physical spoons. It was first coined by an individual who has chronic health issues and how taxing mental health is on their day to day lives. The idea is that you only have so many spoons to use throughout the day and one a spoon has been used it’s no longer available. There are days in which I’m a bit more chirpy than others and it’s usually because I didn’t have to expel that much energy at work. And there are days in which I shamble along because I’m mentally taxed and have no more bandwidth left inside me.

I want to explain this little tangent and how it relates to the story at hand. When it comes to my special interests (mountain bikes, cooking, music, and Star Wars) regardless of my headspace I instantly will perk right up if someone wants to talk about one of them. Case in point with the girl from yoga asked me to explain from a culinary perspective why pineapple on pizza works well. I then proceeded to fully unmask and let the ‘tism fly free. For me personally I tend to always keep my mask on as a defense mechanism (and I’m highly certain this is the case for most if not all autistics out there) because subconsciously I think that I must mask to hide my social ability shortcomings and to fit into society’s expectations.

The main issue that I grapple with is how I overly complicate and over think situations when it isn’t black and white. To me at least relationships are organic in nature and are living breathing entities that which have two human beings intertwined at the center of it all. This is where I think my ‘tism is kicking in this “situation”. On one hand I want to ask her out but on the other I don’t want to “loose” a possible friendship/connection and come out of it looking like an idiot who misread the room (something that I do quite frequently might I add). I do recognize that I am subconsciously fighting the natural variability of life but I also recognize that I do lack some perception due to neurological divergence from a “typical” individual. I’m not hiding behind a disability but I recognize that my disability can hinder at times but on the flip side sometimes these skills can be learned over time. I know that I can learn these skills but I need to ultimately to try and put myself in these “uncomfortable” situations. The thing about me is that I have a hard time working and thinking in the gray areas.

Looking back at the past I always tended to avoid “uncomfortable” social situations/interactions which meant I often became a wallflower. This thing is I want to change but the reality is I really don’t know how to change. Everyone around me has been encouraging me to take that leap of faith but the devil on my shoulder tells me otherwise.

I know we shouldn’t change who we are at an intrinsic level, but maybe we need to look at a change of vocabulary for this idea. I see the value in growing in who I am, and exploring the world around me from a philosophical and social perspective. I know that I have the ability to learn new ways and when I look at everything from the third person point of view I can see the growth I’ve made thus far. We also need to redefine what change represents in order to tie the idea back into our updated vocabulary. Change is and will continue to be a normal event that will happen in everyday life situations.

There are three constants in life: death, taxes, and change. When I look back over the past handful of years I recognize the personal growth that was very been cultivating which has resulted in change in a positive light. Personal growth and development begets the change that we want to see and allows us to mature into the individual whom lies at the center of our being. So when we approach the concept of change from one that is defined as complete shift of who we are to a definition that is centered around growing as an individual we completely bring a new light and purpose to this unavoidable constant in life.

Now back to my story at hand. Because of my normal tendency to shield myself from uncomfortable social situations, I grew to become a bit of a wallflower. Now I wouldn’t say that I’m entirely a recluse from the world around me as I do engage in social interactions in my “safe spaces” (yoga, Magic the Gathering nights, WarHammer, mountain biking). Also I’m perfectly ok with sharing my vulnerable side as a means to share empathy and normalize the pain that others may be going through themselves. But to me asking someone out is an entirely new vulnerability that I do not have much experience in dealing with or even sharing. This is the root of my conundrum. The ‘tism is trying to shield me from experiencing discomfort while prioritizing status quo. I firmly believe that the other part of this equation is a general avoidance of getting close to people. Don’t get me wrong I have friends but I don’t hang out with them on the weekends, I tend to do things alone, and I really don’t reach out to people. Apart of this I believe stems from the issues I dealt with back in 2019 with a toxic relationship and downward spiral I found myself falling through. I know that this is all in my head as my friends at the yoga studio have told me otherwise and we do hang out after class to shoot the shit or eat dinner together. I am very thankful for the group of friends I’ve made at yoga as it’s been instrumental in removing a bit of my shell over time.

Here is the thing the night can be bright with all the stars and moon shining. And change can just be that, a light to brighten up something that was once dark. Personally for me change is something that I struggle to accept and usually I have to force myself to make the necessary adjustments. But I know I can do better for myself and I do unconsciously make small steps in developing my personal growth and allowing more change to happen. I will say that I see my biggest steps when I am able to fully unmask around others and let my true self shine that change happens quicker. I believe this is due in part to the idea that the energy that I put out gets returned by these individuals whom I’m interacting with as they accept me. For me at least the hurdle that I am working with is to give change a chance and allow for a little more personal growth to happen.

Once again when we take a step back from life we can see that just with a little change in perspective we can see the bigger picture at hand.