Back in 1975, when I was 18, I started to fall in love (maybe). I'm not sure it was love, it might have been what was then called a "crush." At any rate it never blossomed into full-blown mutual romantic love. It never had a chance. Which is probably for the best, considering that at 18 I was still very much unformed. But he taught me a lesson I've never forgot.
Don was in his 20's and I was 18. I'd only had one date prior to meeting him, a date in which the boy I was with thrust my hand down in his pants at a movie and then told me "I have a hard-on, want to see it?" Back in those days I was a very sheltered and ignorant (isn't it funny how ignorant and innocent go together?) Catholic virgin. I had been brought up with dreams of waiting until marriage and all that other romantic garbage and of course I didn't really know anything about life so I could not judge for myself how true or false the arguments pro and con were.
Anyway Don and I were part of the same church group. I don't remember how it happened but he started taking an interest in me. He started picking me up for meetings and sat with me. Little by little i found myself wanting to be around him more and more. I don't know if that's love or maybe it was an addiction. For someone who had been previously rejected it was pretty heady stuff--you might say it was like being introduced to meth (not that I would know about meth). The old hormones and biochemistry were starting to wake up at any rate.
Back then girls did NOT pursue guys. It was social death for any girl to express interest in a guy before he showed interest in her and especially for someone who was already on the social fringes. So I bided my time. I was patient. Someday he would take me on a real date. Meanwhile there were people in the church group who could see that I was falling for Don. One of them, Brian, even remarked that "Don thinks you are shyly sweet on him." I said yes, that was true, but what did Don think? Did he feel the same way? Brian did not answer that.
So the weeks went on with no change. Don kept taking me to the church group and sitting next to me; in all that time I never saw him paying any open attention to another girl. Then one day around Christmas he invited me to a party! A real date! After all this time! I felt like Scarlett O'Hara when she was in the library at Twelve Oaks--now she would get to tell Ashley she loved him and he would confess his love for her. Well it didn't work that way for Scarlett and it didn't work that way for me. All through the party Don ignored me. Afterwards on the way home when I timidly chided him for ignoring me he dropped the bomb. Like Ashley he was in love with another woman. Someone from the prayer group. He said they had a lot in common and had grown quite close. What about us? "I can fulfill your needs," he said, "but you can never fulfill my needs." He then went on to explain that he saw me as a "little sister project" much like his work with Big Brothers.
Even after 40 years--especially after 40 years--I want to say, "What the HELL were you, a 20-year-old, doing going out with an 18-year-old? What the HELL did you think would happen? If I truly was not what you were looking for in a girlfriend, then why the HELL didn't you just leave me alone like everyone else? Why did you give me signals that you were interested? Were you REALLY that clueless that you didn't think I would start falling for you?"
Don taught me a valuable lesson, that because a guy acts interested in you doesn't mean he really is interested in you, at least not in the way you want. Don taught me mistrust. Don taught me about the way of the world as it really is, not the way all the romantic songs say it is. And I've never ever really been able to get emotionally close to a guy since. It's not that I'm "carrying a torch" for him; I could care less. I understand he married the girl. Good for them. It was his playing with my feelings and treating me not as his equal but as some feel-good project that upset me then and still upsets me now. As the old song says, "I'm the sadder but wiser girl."
But let's tweak the story a little. What if, instead of Don, it had been DONNA who had showered me with that kind of attention that I was so obviously starved for and wanted? Would I have responded emotionally in the same way or would my inhibitions have blocked my feelings? Back in 1975 being gay was barely on the radar. It was something whispered about and even more of a social kiss of death than a girl chasing guys. So I don't know if I would have fallen in love with Donna. I do know if Donna had declared the kind of feelings for me that I had felt for Don I would have run like hell.
Love and attraction are funny things. We don't like to think of them as culturally driven but they are. In the American Midwest of 1975 the "feminine mystique" was still very much in vogue although feminism was starting to make itself known. Women were still pretty much expected to marry and stay home and raise children. If you went to college it was for a Mrs degree. Looking back, my parents were rather unusual in that not only did they expect us girls to go to college we were also expected to WORK. To have careers. Then maybe marry and have children. In fact my mother often said (perhaps she was thinking of her own shattered dreams) "there are worse things than never getting married. Getting married to the wrong person is one." This was very much going against the current of the times. Dating was a sign of social status. If you were not asked out then you sat at home. There was no going to dances by oneself or worse yet with other girls. It just was not done. And woe to the girl who did not have anyone male calling her on Friday or Saturday night. She was a nobody. So yes, I was very much caught up in that kind of thinking. I wanted a boyfriend because then I could prove to myself and to the rest of society that I WAS somebody. Who he was, what he wanted, what his character was, didn't matter as long as he was male and socially acceptable (there were guys who were not and you avoided them like the plague). Sad to say, this shallow mindset is still being promoted today. I understand that in some circles being "bi-curious" is a sign of stature and "open-mindedness." When sexual orientation becomes a "fad" then I start to wonder what exactly is being promoted and who is profiting from it.
We live in a time when sexual orientation is simultaneously seen as set-in-stone/unchanging yet at the same time subject to experimentation and choice. Supposing it had been Donna who played that game with me? What would my relationships with other women be from that point on? Intimacy--affection--these are all difficult things for those of us on the spectrum and I daresay a good many of us have been taken advantage of in that way.
Why did we as a society allow casual, emotionless sexual activity (with either gender) to become the norm and not true intimacy?
Don was in his 20's and I was 18. I'd only had one date prior to meeting him, a date in which the boy I was with thrust my hand down in his pants at a movie and then told me "I have a hard-on, want to see it?" Back in those days I was a very sheltered and ignorant (isn't it funny how ignorant and innocent go together?) Catholic virgin. I had been brought up with dreams of waiting until marriage and all that other romantic garbage and of course I didn't really know anything about life so I could not judge for myself how true or false the arguments pro and con were.
Anyway Don and I were part of the same church group. I don't remember how it happened but he started taking an interest in me. He started picking me up for meetings and sat with me. Little by little i found myself wanting to be around him more and more. I don't know if that's love or maybe it was an addiction. For someone who had been previously rejected it was pretty heady stuff--you might say it was like being introduced to meth (not that I would know about meth). The old hormones and biochemistry were starting to wake up at any rate.
Back then girls did NOT pursue guys. It was social death for any girl to express interest in a guy before he showed interest in her and especially for someone who was already on the social fringes. So I bided my time. I was patient. Someday he would take me on a real date. Meanwhile there were people in the church group who could see that I was falling for Don. One of them, Brian, even remarked that "Don thinks you are shyly sweet on him." I said yes, that was true, but what did Don think? Did he feel the same way? Brian did not answer that.
So the weeks went on with no change. Don kept taking me to the church group and sitting next to me; in all that time I never saw him paying any open attention to another girl. Then one day around Christmas he invited me to a party! A real date! After all this time! I felt like Scarlett O'Hara when she was in the library at Twelve Oaks--now she would get to tell Ashley she loved him and he would confess his love for her. Well it didn't work that way for Scarlett and it didn't work that way for me. All through the party Don ignored me. Afterwards on the way home when I timidly chided him for ignoring me he dropped the bomb. Like Ashley he was in love with another woman. Someone from the prayer group. He said they had a lot in common and had grown quite close. What about us? "I can fulfill your needs," he said, "but you can never fulfill my needs." He then went on to explain that he saw me as a "little sister project" much like his work with Big Brothers.
Even after 40 years--especially after 40 years--I want to say, "What the HELL were you, a 20-year-old, doing going out with an 18-year-old? What the HELL did you think would happen? If I truly was not what you were looking for in a girlfriend, then why the HELL didn't you just leave me alone like everyone else? Why did you give me signals that you were interested? Were you REALLY that clueless that you didn't think I would start falling for you?"
Don taught me a valuable lesson, that because a guy acts interested in you doesn't mean he really is interested in you, at least not in the way you want. Don taught me mistrust. Don taught me about the way of the world as it really is, not the way all the romantic songs say it is. And I've never ever really been able to get emotionally close to a guy since. It's not that I'm "carrying a torch" for him; I could care less. I understand he married the girl. Good for them. It was his playing with my feelings and treating me not as his equal but as some feel-good project that upset me then and still upsets me now. As the old song says, "I'm the sadder but wiser girl."
But let's tweak the story a little. What if, instead of Don, it had been DONNA who had showered me with that kind of attention that I was so obviously starved for and wanted? Would I have responded emotionally in the same way or would my inhibitions have blocked my feelings? Back in 1975 being gay was barely on the radar. It was something whispered about and even more of a social kiss of death than a girl chasing guys. So I don't know if I would have fallen in love with Donna. I do know if Donna had declared the kind of feelings for me that I had felt for Don I would have run like hell.
Love and attraction are funny things. We don't like to think of them as culturally driven but they are. In the American Midwest of 1975 the "feminine mystique" was still very much in vogue although feminism was starting to make itself known. Women were still pretty much expected to marry and stay home and raise children. If you went to college it was for a Mrs degree. Looking back, my parents were rather unusual in that not only did they expect us girls to go to college we were also expected to WORK. To have careers. Then maybe marry and have children. In fact my mother often said (perhaps she was thinking of her own shattered dreams) "there are worse things than never getting married. Getting married to the wrong person is one." This was very much going against the current of the times. Dating was a sign of social status. If you were not asked out then you sat at home. There was no going to dances by oneself or worse yet with other girls. It just was not done. And woe to the girl who did not have anyone male calling her on Friday or Saturday night. She was a nobody. So yes, I was very much caught up in that kind of thinking. I wanted a boyfriend because then I could prove to myself and to the rest of society that I WAS somebody. Who he was, what he wanted, what his character was, didn't matter as long as he was male and socially acceptable (there were guys who were not and you avoided them like the plague). Sad to say, this shallow mindset is still being promoted today. I understand that in some circles being "bi-curious" is a sign of stature and "open-mindedness." When sexual orientation becomes a "fad" then I start to wonder what exactly is being promoted and who is profiting from it.
We live in a time when sexual orientation is simultaneously seen as set-in-stone/unchanging yet at the same time subject to experimentation and choice. Supposing it had been Donna who played that game with me? What would my relationships with other women be from that point on? Intimacy--affection--these are all difficult things for those of us on the spectrum and I daresay a good many of us have been taken advantage of in that way.
Why did we as a society allow casual, emotionless sexual activity (with either gender) to become the norm and not true intimacy?
