It all comes down to Aspergers Syndrome, or Autism Spectrum Disorder as it is called now. And my complete lack of social skills. Okay I have social skills, I talk and I listen and I interpret, but the near total lack of personal expression and ability to read others or as it was drilled into my skull at teachers college, Non Verbal Communication, which represents an estimated 95% of all communication, means I am effectively socially disabled. Crippled rather.
It is intuitive. People tell me that they don't notice non verbal communication, but it is subconscious and so they would not notice it. But they use it all the time to judge situation and to modify their own expression. They use it when talking to strangers, when they talk to friends and when they are alone with a significant other. My analytical computer program in my head that governs my interactions, based on what I see and gives me a mechanical response based on failed and successful interactions from the past, is severely flawed.
Examples, because you can't know, you can't believe unless you understand. I am watering plants in the greenhouse and I splash a little water on a co-worker because I am slightly angry with them. I get a facial reaction that I can't quite figure out, my reaction in my gut says do it again because it looks positive, but I stop and ask. The truth was that the expression was the opposite and if I had followed my gut reaction I would have had an angry friend and not a playful one. Two, I am giving a person a massage, see a previous entry and I am consciously afraid that I might hurt my subject, there is a gasp and I have to stop and ask if I hurt them, I can't tell. I have to ask because in the past I assumed it was a good gasp and I had hurt someone.
So the troubles that I have been having at work also come from trying to be friends. That and my Superman Complex, the constant need to help people. I meet someone at work and I talk to them. I help them by telling them what they should not do, like water the geraniums, because the boss likes to keep them dry just on this side of dead and the horticulturalist wants them to be big and healthy and no-one should step into that landline like I did. I want to help them because I like them and I don't want to see them get fired because someone feels threatened by them and tells them to do something that will get them fired.
The trouble is I want friends, real friends. Real friends do things together. They do things more than one place. Acquaintances are people that you see in one location or you interact with them in one way, when that one thing goes away or changes, the acquaintance goes away with it and then you only see them on Facebook. Acquaintances are not friends they are just people you know and they are cheap. Extroverts don't get this. Friends are people that you care for and that you cherish.
When I make a friend, I am making an investment and I want to protect my investment; I want to help them. Friends mean more to me than anything in the world. Well lovers mean more to me than friends, but I think of lovers as friends++.
So back to work, I want people to succeed and I try to help them, so I try to help them, but I can't read them. I can't read what state they are in, I can't react to them I can't interpret how my words are affecting them. They can't read me, I don't express my true emotions though my actions or my body language, my voice tone is usually monotone and changes only through conscious decisions on my part. I try to get better, but really that is just me adding to my internal mental computer program and not non verbal communication.
So is it realistic for me to cut off becoming friends with people at work? No not really. Most of the people who I know who read this blog, I met at work. Most of my Facebook friends I met at work. On the other hand I can modify behaviour. For instance, when I like something, an activity, I make a conscious choice to exclude anyone I meet in that activity as a sexual partner, because I am afraid that if that happens then I won't be able to do that activity again or go to that place again. I know that this is stupid, because it really limits me, but if I like some activity I don't want to ruin it by making bad decisions. Where I have done this in the past and present: Role-Playing, Housing Situations, Yoga and Bicycle clubs. On the whole I am not sure if this is good or bad. I have made less women uncomfortable by not hitting on them at roleplaying venues, I have had the hots for many yoga instructors and not acted on it. Stuff like that. Good things did not happen like when the yoga student asked me to skip class and go to a concert with her, I ignored crazy Landlady' s advances, but maybe that is a good thing.
The problem that I see is that, as a sex obsessed person, if I keep cutting out parts of my life that I can make friends or entertain more than friendship it is tantamount to saying that I am giving up sex too. And that I am giving up on life.
Yesterday's inter-reactions that allowed me to make my decision on this point, occurred because I was trying to help someone keep their job and ended with me causing the person to become severely angry with me and my coworkers siding with her and I felt out of my depths with despair. I don't want to give up trying to be friends with coworkers, because I spend so much time with them and I have so few friends as it is, but I realized that it was hurting everyone involved.
I had to leave the room. I wanted to drive nails into my wrists and cut my arms to ribbons. Part of me wants me to go and prepare a noose somewhere at work so that the next time I feel this way I can act on it before rational thought comes back. Lately suicidal impulses have been frequent occurrences. I am not sure if stopping to try to be friends with people at work will increase the urges or decrease them.
Do you understand how bad this is?
A work friend, who at one time thought that my Aspergers was only in my mind, is starting to understand. That is a good thing I guess. I can't run away from this problem, because the problem is me and the only way I can think of solving it is just to stop trying to make friends. My friend tells me that I have to stop trying to help people, but the problem with that is that is the definition of friendship, people that you help, that you want to help with out compensation. This is my suicide note. I don't see how I can go on without friends, I don't see how I can keep the same number of friends if you can't make new ones, because friends stop being friends, friends die, and friends move away.
I have given up on sex too this year, now I am giving up on friendship too, how long can I last.
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