Don’t ask

Listening to Okean Elzy’s “Don’t Ask,” I remembered a trip when one person disappeared from sight for a bit, and it was unclear whether a drone had flown over their factory or something else had happened. There are words in this song: “I just want to be where you are.” And, accordingly, I thought about the fact that recently another person said to me: “What about you? We just met. How can you want something right away, some kind of relationship or something else, if we haven’t even seen each other?”

I thought that for a person with ASD and ADHD, you want to see stability even in the fact that you are getting to know someone. That is, at the initial stage of getting to know someone (if the person responds, if you have reciprocity), you want to see stability. You perceive that this is already technically the beginning of a relationship. You are no longer looking for another person, you do not think that there is someone else, you delete your profile from applications. That is, you have already chosen a person because you are so comfortable. You are comfortable building a relationship with this person who has reciprocated you.

Yes, maybe something won’t work out for you. Maybe something won’t work out, but it will later. When it doesn’t work out and suddenly it doesn’t work out, then you will perceive internally that it didn’t work out. But at the stage when you start communicating like this, you see reciprocity, you believe that this is already the beginning of your relationship. And, accordingly, you get used to the person, you perceive them as something that you are building together with them, that there is already something between you.

For normal people without this ASD and ADHD, in this sense it is easier. They perceive it somehow easier, simpler – that it is just communication. You can flirt, you can somehow discuss there. There are some things that may be, may not be. You simply perceive that person as something like a story from a book.

You take it very seriously. That is, if a person says: “We’ll go to the water park there someday,” you think about how realistic it is, what is needed for this. You don’t just go to buy tickets, but at the same time you start planning internally, because your comfort zone is always when you control the situation, when you understand what will happen next, what will happen tomorrow and all that. That is, your world can exist in comfort only if you understand where you will be tomorrow, in a sense, where you will live tomorrow, with whom you will live tomorrow, what will happen between you and in general.

It’s not hard for you to accept that a person may have children or someone else, or some problems, debts, and so on. It doesn’t matter. You just accept that a person has all this, and you just think: “Okay, we’ll deal with this, yes, we’ll deal with this, yes, and with this we’ll do this, this, and this.” That is, roughly speaking, when a person says that they have children, you start thinking: “Okay, how can we find our mutual understanding with their children? Is it to take some game that you will play with them together, that is, get to know each other through the fact that you are playing something together.”

Accordingly, for people like me, building relationships is a little different than for people who met at a bar, hung out, and, accordingly, today they slept together, tomorrow they broke up, and the day after tomorrow they’re nobody.

And in my opinion, for something to be sexual between you, you have to have some kind of emotional connection. If there is, it’s about one thing. If there isn’t, then sex is not interesting, it’s not perceived as something that you want to share, to be for the person. You need a feeling that you and the person are together, you are on the same wavelength, you are about one whole. It’s not about “ownership”. It’s about you just knowing that you have each other.

Happy feels like..

I was sitting on a Saturday morning. The sun was peeking through the window. For the first time in a long time. Cold days, despite the fire that burned inside me. Fire for a person. Sometimes our warmth from within is greater than the warmth from the sun outside. But when it fades, the sun becomes too warm. You reach for it. You reach for its warmth.

For the first time in a bunch of days, I slept well, because I didn’t sleep for 2.5 hours. For the first time, I saw light not in someone else’s eyes. Not in the eyes of hope for something that would change my universe. Happy Feels Like played in my head… I realized that this was it.

The work for this song wasn’t supposed to be light in itself. Or with a glowing inscription. It’s about the inner light that we forget about. And in moments when we forget about it, the external light comes to our aid.

Google OK. Stability

The stability of my condition depends on…several things.

The first of them is dialogue. There should be a constant dialogue with a person. If something is wrong, I’m not okay. If a person disappears, I’m not okay. It’s great when a person says, “I’ll be gone for 3 days.” It’s even better when they show up after 3 days. It’s generally great.

The second is the volume of communication. It’s not okay for you when you write a lot, and the person gives you 2 words. When you dump a bunch of text. It’s not okay for another person who is not used to such a volume of text. So if you are different in this sense – don’t even try.

Third interest. Not only should you ask. They should also ask you. Clarify. Interrogate. When you “play interview” – it quickly exhausts. So don’t play. If the communication is one-sided – it’s sad, but end it.

If any of these three points is “not” – everything will be a fiasco. But the problem is not that there will be a fiasco. Even on AD, even “controlling the amount of text” – it’s still a fiasco. Because the real “connection” happens when all three points are in effect. Otherwise, any “breakdown” will lead to a fiasco again. Therefore, the option of “constantly on AD” is so-so. Therapy? Who knows… but in the state that is – you should always remember the three points.

Flat world

There are people with a flat world. There are a lot of them, actually. They are ideal workers. Because they have a direction that they have to cope with – and they are perfectly realized in it. They are ideal workers in the factory. They are ideal workers in the store. They are ideal mothers. They are ideal wives. This does not make them worse than anyone else. You just, in the same way, should not expect from a person what their inner world is not adapted for.

Likewise, from the opposite, I didn’t know many genuinely creative people who would be ideal mothers. That is, they, without any problems, provided for the child’s basic needs, but no more. Children of such people grow up very independent. Because otherwise there is no way. Again, this is not about their minus. It’s just about the structure of their inner world.

The stupidest thing you can do to anyone, be it the first or the second person, is to reshape them into someone else. Someone they are not.

I am a creative person. I am interested in creative people. I am not interested in monotonous, monotonous work, because I get tired of it quickly. That is why I am engaged in chimneys, and in the repair of transport/equipment, and in computer maintenance, at the same time I like the fragile images in the photos that I create. But this is me. Others do not have to be the way I am. Simply because they are different. And this must be accepted. That you choose “either-or”. In order not to be a monster in the life of another person.

Leave hope…

Fallout 2. No, not the second season of the series. It’s Fallout 2. There’s so much in this title for me. Today I caught myself thinking that the weather outside the window and the mood are such that they say “load…run…disappear from this gloomy universe into an even bleaker one. But so familiar…” – the taste of childhood is not “ice cream for 50 kopecks”. It’s when you went to the store with a sore throat to change discs, and one of the two turned out to be Fallout 2. You liked the “dude on the cover”. And you realized that this is exactly what…

I remember the snowy weather, and the fact that my sore throat didn’t get any better after the hike. But then I discovered a whole universe for myself. I spent half a day working on a quest to “open” doors, because I couldn’t even imagine that in a game you could not just “click” but set off a timer-activated explosive, throw it out of your backpack and… blow up that damn door. That was something incredible. This universe was incredible. Because games back then were about possibilities. About tones of text. About stories you lived with and with which you fell asleep and woke up.

Fallout 2 was the revelation for me about how games could be made and how limitless they could be in terms of possibilities. It wasn’t a game, it was a cinematic adventure. I can name a bunch of games from that time, like Phantasmagoria, that stood out from the AAA knockoffs like Assassins Creed that are coming out now. Because back then, games were about the idea, not the cover (pun intended, I know).

Looking for someone

You should first of all look for a friend. A person with whom you will have mutual support. But you should remember that not all people are capable of being friends. Not all people are capable of returning the warmth that you give. And not all are capable of appreciating each other, even in difficult times.

When asking yourself what you are looking for in another person, the first word is “warmth.” Because that is what we often lack. Warmth is not about everyday life. It is not about “who washes the dishes.” It is about an inner sense of peace. That is, for the most part, everyone is now looking for a “home” in another person, where they will feel comfortable. And only then everything else.

But not every home you enter gives you a sense of peace and comfort. So, technically, all single people are “tenants” of this world. Who are simply looking for a place where they will be comfortable. Despite everything that is happening outside the window…