Who Benefits

Years later, someone tells a story about you. You know the night they mean. You remember the table and you remember going home relieved because they’d liked you. The rest won’t come back. Especially the part where you were apparently there.

They remember you laughing. You did laugh. The table laughed, so you went with it.

They remember you saying, “I don’t care.” You’d said exactly that. What they don’t remember is that you did care and heard yourself say it anyway.

Then they tell you how easy you were to be around.

That should’ve bothered you. It didn’t. The night had worked. Nobody got upset with you and nobody left. You couldn’t remember a single thing you’d said, but back then that seemed less important than being liked.

And it kept working. Of course you kept doing it.

The panic wasn’t new when they finally walked away. It’d started years before, with all those little moments when you heard yourself say something you didn’t mean and let it stand. You’d get home relieved they’d liked you, then sit there with nothing from the night that felt like yours.

Now they’re gone, and you miss them. That’s true. It just gets tangled up with missing the person you turned into whenever you thought they might leave. You knew how to be that person. Other people liked that person. They still tell stories about that person.

You sit there listening, waiting for yourself to show up.

You don’t.

They met the person who made life easier.

You made sure they did.

Who benefits?

— Autistic Ang

* Upgrade to Paid! I’d like to retire the phrase “that’ll do.”

Required reading for people who keep accidentally studying themselves ⬇️
Adult Autism 101