REFLECTIONS

10-MAY-2002.

An Open Child

If you ask most people, "What's the opposite of love," without batting an eye, they'll say, "Hate!" People with autism would say something different. If you asked someone who is «absorbed in imaginary activity, directed by their wishes, with arrested childhood development affecting language and social communication», "What is the opposite of being loved?" they'd probably say, "Being neglected."

An anonymous friend on the World Wide Web sent Amoret and me the following message: "Could you provide good pointers for those on the Autistic Spectrum? This is so we can learn Social/Emotional Intelligence better to camouflage ourselves from would-be abusers, and to find and keep friends and sexual partners?"

"Normal people," for the most part, are absorbed in pain, with little sense of humor about it. I learned this the hard way. My best friend had been telling me about a girl he had been avidly courting, giving her a red rose once a week, because, as he put it, "She's totally open now, and I don't want to miss this chance ... Maybe something will happen."

I felt a little peeved, because he has an inclination to describe people in psychological terms, pretty much saying, if he likes them, they're being themselves, and if he hates them, they're acting out from the superego imitation of their mother. On this particular day I expressed my displeasure by saying, "You know, whenever anyone talks about the superego or about being open, I have no idea what they're talking about." Frankly, I felt he was being a sap, because when people like other people, they like them just for being themselves, not for any gifts they come up with.

Slightly trembling, he said, "Being open means being one raw nerve filled with unimaginable pain," whereupon he turned on his heels and said, "I'm taking the BART train home." Somewhere in there I grabbed his shoulders and said, "Come on! Get a sense of humor about being open!" which didn't do any good — He's been scrupulously avoiding me ever since.

In the meantime, I asked Mary, the girl I've been avidly courting, "What's the opposite of love?"

"Hate!" she said, without batting an eye.

"What's the opposite of sex?"

"Marriage!" — This was funny, because that's the impediment — "Oh, you made me blush," she went on, sort of wiggling behind the glass window where she works. "It was just the first word that crossed my mind."

"Do you think feeling and sentiment are the same thing?" I asked in a hurry, because I was blocking the line behind me.

"No," she said, "They aren't."

21-FEB-2008.

As follows

CODE WORDS: area, cannot, divorced, fail, glazed, grown-up, holidays, human, love, nice, raisins, reindeer, respect, scene, sweater, talked, ugh, upstairs, wear