Navigating uncharted paths, standing at the crossroads of self-discovery and connection, embracing the journey even amidst the unknown. In college, I amused myself with inhumane pursuits. As someone who hunted men for sport, I enjoyed the antics my male peers would stoop to for a chance at sex. Anything goes. I had never dated before college, so I both internally believed myself to be unlikable, and had no idea what a person who liked me looked like. So I took what was basically an extreme vulnerability on my part and turned it into a weapon of mass romantic destruction.
Little games like that also bolstered the help I got from drugs and alcohol when it came to fitting in at parties, or seeming to fit in, anyway. One of my favorite ways to tell if a guy was interested in me was to see how long he was willing to listen to me talk about one of my special interests. One guy voluntarily listened to my Song of Ice and Fire theories for two hours. He had never watched the show. He had never read the booksβhis literacy was questionable.
He even asked me if Game of Thrones was sci-fi or fantasy before I started talking about it. If I were in a TV show, I think this would make me a fantastic example of autistic representation. Like haha, third thing. I love rules like this, because I can use them to a.
This is chaotic neutral autism. Navigating hookup culture as an autistic person was one of the first times socializing came naturally to me, for the same reason I always say dating cishet men is dating on easy mode. Heteronormative pre-hookup spaces, like bars, clubs, etc. Men in bars seem to script too! This is why their conversation can be so boring. You might ask, why did fun have to be cruel? First, cruelty is an exaggerationβthose guys learned valuable information about such topics as: A Song of Ice and Fire, feminism, Steven Universe, Bernie Sanders, Skyrim, and others!
But yes, I could be cruel. When I was romancing a non-smoker, sometimes I would gauge interest by going out for a cigarette and seeing if he would come with me.
