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On Saturday morning I was sitting at my computer trying to decide what to write about when a thought hit me. It’s the weekend, the time to get together with your friends, hang out and do “guy things.”
But what if you’re on the spectrum and struggle with making friends or even keeping them once you’ve worked your butt off to make them? It can feel like no one’s around and like no one cares about you and who you are.
To be clear, you don’t have to be autistic to feel this way, but I know a lot of my brothers and sisters on the spectrum do feel the way I feel. I’m proudly autistic, but that doesn’t mean I always have to feel good about every aspect of the life that goes with it.
I’m not saying I have no friends, but the few that I do have aren’t the type to hang out and get together with. They all have lives, families and other activities that they’re involved with that I don’t happen to be a part of. That’s not a slam on them, it’s just the reality of the situation.
The closest thing I have to hanging out with my friends is getting together on Friday night at my local comic book shop for what I lovingly call, and have on my calendar as, Nerd Game Night.
It’s when a whole bunch of people gather in the evening to play Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering and other assorted “nerd games” with others. I have my small group of people that I regularly get together with so we can, as one person puts it, kill goblins and other various creatures. To be clear, it’s not all guys who gather. In fact, in my small group, the mix is five guys and three women.
Living where I do, in an Ozark community of about 15,000 with three lakes nearby, including one with world-class bass fishing, it’s all about hanging out with “the guys” and doing things with your friends. That’s not to say that it’s all about fishing, hunting, and camping, but rather having a group of males that you regularly get together with to do things.
You see, those of us on the spectrum often have a hard time communicating with people and even the thought of talking with others can often freak us out in ways you can only imagine. Talking with someone, looking them in the eye and sharing with them can be a paralyzing event.
In short, it can make you feel like less of a man or at times, not even a man at all.
So how do we overcome this fear and the overwhelming sense of inadequacy that can go along with it? That’s a great question. Some will tell us that we just need to, “suck it up,” but that’s not the answer. You can’t just turn off your autism and switch off those feelings, though you may desperately want to.
No, the answer is more complex than that and the truth is that there is no one single answer. It depends on the person, on the situation, and on your feelings at that moment. Do we have to simply, “man up?” Are we less of a man if we don’t?
Being a male on the spectrum can be difficult because everything society tells us is about a man being tough and that we should be able to deal with the situation at hand, is frankly, bullshit. I know that I have neighbors who have made derogatory comments about my masculinity because I spend a lot of my time alone, in the house and away from others.
Imagine what they would say if they knew I spent my Friday nights in a comic book shop playing games? I’ve imagined it and the imagination isn’t pretty!
If you’re like me, there are times when you desperately want to meet people and make friends, but you simply can’t do it. When that desire for friendship happens along with the panic of making friends and praying you don’t say something stupid, it’s overwhelming and can make you feel like less of a man.
Being an adult male on the spectrum can be tough. That’s not taking away anything from “normal” men because I know being an adult male, in general, can be tough as well. It’s just that this feeling of autistic masculinity can be overwhelming and for me and the rest of my autistic peeps, overwhelming can equal shutting down and pulling away.
Autistic masculinity is a tough concept. How can we be a stereotypical man when we often times feel like we’re less of a man? Should we even want to be a stereotypical man?
Those are all great questions and ones I’d love to get your answers to. What’s your opinion on autistic masculinity? Share them with us and start the conversation.
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Photo courtesy Pixabay.