I am not Spock

And my wife is not Doctor McCoy.

However, she does say things like: "Don't you have any feelings, you monster?", and I will reply with something like: "What is the point of becoming agitated?"

I suppose that it's weird for people to fathom, but if you apply logic to almost any emotional state, emotions will lose.

Your kitchen catches fire. You start to panic. Why? What's the point of that? And more importantly, how is it helping? Panicking will not help you remember where the fire extinguisher is, or help you communicate with the 911 operator. So why do it?

One morning, around 4am, my wife Karen woke me up with a scream. Not a regular scream either, but one where you inhale instead of exhale. It was one hell of an alarm. I turned the light on and saw that she was shaking, eyes wide open, blood spurting from the mouth. Turns out she was having a seizure, but she had never had one before. 911 was called. I gave the address, explained what was happening, and went back to Karen's side.

I stayed with her, making sure she was still breathing. When the ambulance came, the EMTs managed to revive her.

Was I panicked? Nope. Pumped with adrenaline, sure, but I was fully in control of my actions and thoughts. I'm told that, given the situation, most people would have panicked. I can't imagine anything more pointless than intentionally making myself useless for a period of time. Probably why I don't drink.

I get happy, angry or sad just like everybody else. I try to not be bored because it seems pointless. Why be bored? It just wastes time and makes you miserable.

This way of thinking extends to things like motion sickness. I really don't see the point of this. If you eat a bad egg, I understand why you need to vomit. If your eyes say you're moving but your ear says you're not, why is the stomach even getting involved? How is vomiting in the car helping anyone?

And what of insults? What's the point of being insulted? If somebody you don't like says something you don't like, why does it matter so much? It takes two parties for an insult to occur. Logically if you don't feel insulted, you're not insulted. Why torture yourself with the opinion of a jerk?

Karen would say "Because we're married, dumbass!"

The unwritten rules

Boy I like rules.

Not so much "like" as "need". Rules are great, because they inform us of the existence and location of boundaries.

Being gifted as I am, I find boundaries to be a very strange animal. Rules show me where the boundaries are.

For example: I can tell how fast I'm allowed to go on the highway before it becomes a problem. If the speed limit says 55, I can go 55.

This system can, of course, fall down. Let's say I'm going 55 in a 55 zone. I'm good, right? What if it's very rainy that day? What if a cop sees me going 55 in a 55 zone and pulls me over. He informs me that I'm "Driving dangerously". Because I'm stupid, I argue. "I was going 55, fully in control, and not weaving."

Five minutes later, I'm staring at a ticket. All for breaking an unwritten rule.

Of course, there's a law that says the cop can pull me over if he thinks I'm driving dangerously. That's not the rule I'm talking about. I'm talking about the cop's internal rule that says I was driving dangerously.

In my mind, that's absolutely unjust. If you tell me that during the rain I should be driving 45, then say that. If you pull me over and say that, in your educated opinion, I should not drive so fast in the rain, that's fine too.

I shouldn't have to pay a fine because somebody had a different opinion than I did.

(I should add at this point that I have never ever been pulled over for this. The above scenario never happened to me. I suppose it might make a difference to people if they don't think I'm venting about a bad experience.)

Unwritten rules abound in the social arena. Some examples:

"Always tell the truth" - One of my lovely wife's favourite quotes. It's also utter crap. A marriage cannot survive if one half always told the truth. I don't lie about things that matter, but if a day passes where I haven't told six white lies, I probably slept all day.

"I want feedback, good or bad" - Who hasn't heard this from their boss at work? I've been a boss before, and I've always found my job to be a hell of a lot easier if my underlings told me what was on their minds without fear of retribution. However, I have made the mistake of assuming that my own bosses would like the same level of candor. If my bosses had said "I want feedback, but if it's bad I'll deny you a pay increase, promotion, or just fire you outright" that would be okay. I could play by that rule.

"How did I do?" - Anytime you have to evaluate somebody else's performance, there's an unwritten rule that says "This person wants praise, and praise laced with tiny amounts of criticism". People have feelings and feelings can hurt. I get that. What I don't get is when somebody invites criticism and immediately feels like they're being attacked. That's like telling someone to hit you as hard as they can, then complaining that they did just that.

The unwritten rules. They wouldn't be so bad if they were written down somewhere. We can manage that, can't we? Something along the lines of "This page intentionally left blank"? Or a verbal warning (that for some reason is documented on paper). You can still call them Unwritten Rules.

At the very least, please stop getting upset if I break an unwritten rule.

I have a lot more to say about unwritten rules. I promise I will get to all of it. After all, I strive to avoid hypocrisy.

Start Here

My name is Ian, and I have autism.

It's really not a big deal. Or rather it *shouldn't* be, but for some reason it is. All my life I've had to answer for the fact that I'm "weird". Personally I never thought "weird" was an issue. Thinking differently is a good thing, right? Outside the box?

Well it's not. In my experience, society would rather that you think, act and speak the same as everybody else. Different is bad. Different is unprofessional.

People are scared of the autistic.

That's what this blog is all about. There's no reason to be scared. There's nothing to fear from people that have brains working differently than yours does. I'll be exploring my experiences (what happens autism and society collide) and showcasing the comedic results.

I will explore the fun side of the autistic mind, and the dark side of society's reaction to it. I want to promote understanding for this "affliction" and make this a better world for the next generation of autistic folks. A generation that includes my daughter.

I want to show you all that autism isn't really all that different.

My name is Ian and autism has me.