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Sunday, November 9, 2008

Odd Man Out

For as long as I can remember, people have always thought I was weird and strange. To be perfectly frank, I've realized this too, though I was never really clear on what exactly it is about me that is so out of step with the vast majority of the world. But everyone seems to agree that there's something about me that simply is different.

I came to grasp this fact very early on. As a young child, I never seemed to connect with others like my contemporaries were able to do. This is not to say that I didn't have friends in grade school, because I did, sort of. For the most part, however, I only had one close friend and my relationship with Greg was decidedly different.

When it was just the two of us, we were great buddies. We hung out at each other's houses and one or the other of us spent the night at the other's home almost every weekend. I considered Greg's mom my second mother and I'm fairly certain Greg felt the same way about my mom.

But our relationship was VERY different in the social setting of school. Greg rarely talked to me then and joined in as the other kids teased me. And I was teased relentlessly for being "weird" -- not beat up or shunned entirely, but constantly ridiculed and belittled. To this day, I don't know why my classmates decided I was weird, but it seemed to be a universally shared concept!

Other than Greg -- who I accepted on his own terms because, had I not, it would have meant NO close "friend" -- the only other kids I was remotely close to were the other outcasts -- Dickie & Nathan. I actually think Dickie & I could have been good friends, but he was Nazarene and his parents weren't keen on having their son hang out with some kid from OUTSIDE the faith.

This said, I don't want any of you to get the wrong idea. Many of my classmates came to my home each year for my birthday party. I think most of them had a good time. I participated in school outings and I often went to "play" with these kids. While I was never excluded from these types of activities, I wasn't exactly welcomed either. In and of itself, the situation was kind of weird -- grudgingly accepted...but not really.

My two years in junior high school were hell. I became an even greater social outcast, so much so that even the nerds kept their distance from me! In junior high, I actually was bullied and beaten up twice. There were a few bright spots -- a few so-so friends and my first girl friend (though we never kissed nor even held hands). I sometimes find it remarkable that I didn't commit suicide then because the vast majority of this time was downright miserable for me.

I think the thing that saved me was that my family moved and this meant I started over again in a new school district. After my previous experience, I kept to myself the whole first year and almost said nary a word to anyone. I figured that, if no one got to know me, no one would pick on me.

Though I tried hard to remain anonymous, my obvious weirdness kept leaking out. But a funny thing happened as I entered my junior year: The very aspects of me that had annoyed my contemporaries for so long became oddly popular. Not only was I not teased for the next two years, but I actually found a modicum of acceptance for being unique.

I had my first serious relationship with a girl and I even had 4 or 5 relatively close friends. Mind you, people continued to tell me that I was definitely strange, but during this brief respite, it wasn't considered to be a negative.

Unfortunately, my celebrity didn't last long and I was pushed back into my role as social outcast in college. And I have been socially awkward ever since.

All in all, my school years would have been unbearable if not for my relationships with my teachers. With only a few exceptions, I seemed to get along with adults far better than kids my own age. (These days this dynamic has flip-flopped; now I seem to relate better to children and animals than I do to adults!)

All of this is very consistent with Asperger's Syndrome (AS). People with AS are typically viewed by others as weird, strange, odd or eccentric. AS folks have great difficulty making friends and always seem awkward in social situations.

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