“That’s great, Dorothy. I hope you hit it off with the little guy. He’s in your preferred buddy age range.”
“No …” I shake my head while retracting it a bit. “What’s that supposed to mean? And that’s not what I was asking.”
“You do well with people a lot older or a lot younger. That’s all.”
“That’s not true.” It is one hundred percent true. I understand mentor-mentee relationships. They feel clearer to me. One teaches. One learns. Black and white. Interacting with people closer to my age gets a little murky. Am I to impart my knowledge upon them? Do they think they have something to teach me? Who is the mentor? Who is the mentee? It just seems like an awkward power struggle and competition for knowledge.
“Okay. Whatever …” Dad clears his throat. He hates conflict even more than I do. Mom will bicker with me longer, until I get frustrated and stomp out of the room.
My dad is a get-to-the-point kind of guy. “What was the question? I think we missed it.”
I sigh. It’s like they don’t even know me. The question is perfectly clear. “Dinner at his house. No restaurant. No menu to study online before Tuesday. He said it’s spaghetti. But does that mean with meat? Meatballs I can handle. Those can be slid to the side … unless they’re greasy and they leave a pooling of oil on the pasta. But if it’s ground meat … like what if it’s a meat sauce? Or what if the sauce is too spicy or too chunky. Ugh …” I gag on my tongue. “Chunky tomato sauce. Gross.”
It sucks being a thirty-year-old woman on the autism spectrum. I obsessed over my diagnosis for years, my obsession being another confirming factor.
Autism.
OCD.
ADHD.
Depression.
I’m a cluster-fuck of issues. My parents sighed with relief when I received an official diagnosis of Asperger syndrome. For them, it’s a label to explain everything that isn’t quite right with me. A catchall.
She’s too messy.
Too organized.
Too energetic.
Too lazy.
Too picky.
Too indifferent.
Basically every time I’m “too” anything to them, it gets filed into the “she’s an Aspie” catchall category. Of course, as with all labels, Aspie’s political correctness became extinct years after my diagnosis. Everything got dumped into ASD—Autism Spectrum Disorder. But to my parents and even myself, I will always be an Aspie. And let’s be honest, aside from the word “ass” phonetically present in the word Aspie, it at least has the possibility of being something extraordinary, like savant or genius.
ASD … not cool at all. Even if the average person can look past the autism spectrum part, the second anyone hears the word “disorder,” game over. Something is clearly wrong with an ASD person. A fault. A defect. Not normal. Just … wrong.
So while I’ve spent many hours studying autism, to the point of feeling like an expert, I still can’t always hide the fact that I am, in fact, on that fucking spectrum. I mean … you don’t have to tell someone you’re a diabetic. You can keep that a secret until you pass out from low blood sugar. Then it’s like, “Oh, yeah … sorry I passed out on you. Did I forget to mention I’m diabetic?”
My “disorder” doesn’t cause me to pass out. It just contributes to really poor social etiquette choices and occasional meltdowns over things like spaghetti dinner invitations. But unlike the diabetic, I never say, “Oh, did I forget to mention that I’m autistic?”
“Just tell him you’re a vegetarian.” Mom smiles her see-I-just-solved-your-problem smile.
“So, I’m supposed to call him just to tell him I’m a vegetarian? What about the spice level and the chunkiness? He’s not going to ask me to watch Roman. He’s going to think I’m crazy. Especially since his mom is a talk doctor. You guys are no help.”
I march out. Why? Why did I think they could help? I give them too much credit for understanding things they clearly don’t understand.
CHAPTER SIX
Dr. Hawkins doesn’t work every weekend. And the one weekend I need him to work … he isn’t scheduled. That means I have one day, one chance to talk to him about the spaghetti dinner. Friday is my day—my only day.
I type out texts, but delete every single one. It isn’t something that can easily be discussed with a text no matter how many emojis I use to convey my feelings. And my feelings are strong. I want him to invite me to dinner.