Note: sorry this story is so long. I probably should have broken it into different entries. I just wanted to give any readers a feel of what my life is like now and how what happened to me in the past continues to haunt me to this day making my life tough and not being able to make any friends, especially female friends.
A few weeks ago I was riding the UTA (Utah Transit Authority) Frontfunner which is a train that runs from Ogden to Salt Lake City. On my way home a group of teenagers walked into the same rail car as I was sitting in and I was right by the door. Of course it is perfectly natural for someone to look over when someone walks into a door to see if you happen to know them or if they appear creepy and you may want to stay away from them. This was a group of high school aged women with their boyfriends. When I looked over, it freaked out the women! Unfortunately this is a normal occurrence in today as much as it has in my previous life. I cannot grasp how people (especially women) see me as staring at them. Perhaps it’s because I am in constantly a dream world as a way to escape the reality of not having anyone to enjoy doing things with. Perhaps the technique I learned as early as grade school where I look away at a woman if she looks over makes her think I was staring at her. I can see how someone would be creeped out especially if I was daydreaming! It would easily look like I was mentally undressing these ladies when I never want to make women feel uncomfortable. I want them to realize that I am a nice person who wouldn’t think of hurting them!
Unfortunately I creeped them off more as they happened to exit the rail car and I wasn’t sure which stop I was in and was looking through the window to see the sign indicating the stop. Unfortunately these ladies happened to be walking by in front of this sign and they ran off when they saw me looking over. I was sad because I never want to creep out these women just like I don’t want to creep out any woman. As I rode back to my final stop (Ogden), I thought about how tough it has been for me and how my experiences with women as far back as grade school has continued to have an effect on how I act around women. It’s kind of strange because I honestly thought I was dumb in high school but at least learned that I am quite talented in writing computer programs but the only problem is I also need to be able to socialize with others like almost any other occupation.
My first bad experience with a woman was in the 5th grade as I was transferred to Washington Terrace Elementary School. This was also the first time I encountered being hated by others. There were two women who I though were cute and admired how they wore sandals and nylons and even thought they were twins since they wore about the same outfit every day and hung around.
One day a friend found out I had a crush on these two women (Jennifer and Denise) and told them. I at first thought they would feel thankful that someone thinks they are beautiful and nice people but I quickly learned I was hated by both of these women. During this time I also didn’t realize that it was impolite to look at a woman’s legs or other parts of their body. Jennifer was the worst of the two as she would keep telling me to stop staring at her even when I wasn’t staring at her. Her friend Denise wouldn’t do it as much but still did it sometimes. At the time I did strange things such as wearing my Boy Scout Uniform to school even though I could have easily changed before our scout meetings which were at night around 7 PM. Jennifer and others would make fun of me for wearing this uniform. I think the reason I wore the uniform is I thought I could impress people by wearing a boy scout uniform to school or it was the first time I was member of some group with outer people my age. Whatever the reason it lead to more ridicule that I already faced!
This was in the early 80s and I believe a new Washington Terrace Elementary was built in the 90s. The original school was made of white stucco and had pink window seals. The school was really old and falling apart and from what I remember, the school was around 50 years old when I attended and the reason it was made of stucco is because it wasn’t planned to be used for a long time but with the Weber County School District Budget, they didn’t have money to replace schools when they were trying to build new schools to keep up with growth in places like Farr West.
Washington Terrace Elementary served as a school for regular students as well as two groups of Special Education students. There were people like me who had a normal IQ but were unable for whatever reasons to function in regular schools. Our Teacher was Mrs. Ammon if I remember right. There was also students with much more serious disabilities but I’m unsure if they were mentally challenged or not. Their teacher was Mr. Sheer or Mr. Sheen (I can’t remember his name). Most of the time we spent time in Mrs. Ammon’s class and sometimes spent PE with Mr. Sheer’s students. We did take classes with the “normal” kids but weren’t welcome since students didn’t like having the share class with students they considered “Retards”. I remember there was so much hate that one student even punch a 2nd grade student just because she acted different. She would cross her arms holding on the chair in front of her like we are told to do during bus emergencies. She would rock her head up and down and this student didn’t like how she acted. I was also punched in the restroom as I was taking a leak and to this day have know idea why I was punched or who punched me since he ran out of the restroom. It was bad enough not being liked by the “normal” students let alone having a couple of girls who hated you.
Some girls were nice to me but more because they felt sorry for me and were nice to me because they didn’t want to hurt me. I remember there was another girl I liked and was too shy to talk to after my experiences with the two other women. Her name was Jodi and I kept trying to get up the guts to say hi to her. The time I did, I walked up and said it too loud. She treated me nicely along with her friend Jennifer, both probably felt sorry for me. I was constantly attacked by this other Jennifer that hated me and sometimes a woman would stand up to her after she made comments to me. I remember one time a girl named Annette confronted Jennifer asking her why she treated me so poorly when I wasn’t doing anything to her. At the time I was avoiding this Jennifer Girl but it seemed we would always cross paths and she would have something to say to me. I remember looking down as I walked past her but this probably made things worse since she caught me looking at her feet and when she saw me looking down she probably figured I wasn’t looking at the ground, I was looking at her feet even though I no longer found this Jennifer girl such an attractive person and didn’t want to see her. It was the darkest period in my life even though I spent only my 5th and 6th grade there! The events that happened to me at Washington Terrace Elementary haunt me to this day several years later! I still wonder why this Jennifer girl thought I was still interested in her long after she repeatedly made fun of me making my life hell! As soon as she indicated she hated me a lot, I lost all interests in her and no longer found her attractive or interesting!
I went to a different high school than my peers at Washington Terrace Elementary who attended T.H. Bell Junior High and I joined the people at my previous school at South Ogden Junior High School. This isn’t the current South Ogden High School which is near H. Guy Child Elementary and the Ogden Regional Medical Center, this was the old South Ogden Junior High located at 4300 Madison that was torn down but also was burned down a week before the scheduled demolition. I started finding myself not well liked as much as I used to be. It wasn’t as bad as Washington Terrace Elementary but still not what I expected. I was ridiculed by classmates and even assaulted by other students! Of course there was a bad experience with a woman at South too that soured my experiences. There was this girl named Melanie R. who probably hated me long before the dirty trick one of her so called friends played on me as well as her (she probably still has no idea I received a fake note from her that was a forgery). Her friend wrote a fake note professing an interest in me. Even though I didn’t see Melanie R. as attractive, I decided to be nice (not knowing this note was fake) and sent a response note asking her about what music she was interested in. I received a nasty reply from her that she didn’t want anything to do with me! I was in the ninth grade and she was in the 8th grade. Since I was going to be in high school the next year I figured she would forget all about it and in the meantime I can avoid her which I quickly learned to be wrong. Every time I walked in the hall, I would hear a voice “stop looking at me!” and realize Melanie R. was walking down the hall. At least Melanie R. didn’t accuse me of looking at her feet all the time but still she was quite mean. I still don’t get it, did she really think after she told me in very certain terms that she hates me that I was still interested in her? I wished I never fell for the trick her friend played and since she hated me so much, I never got a chance to tell her that the only reason I sent a note to her was because I received a note that I thought she wrote and wanted to be nice to her even though I really didn’t have interests in her in the first place.
I did have some other minor incidents such as a couple of girls who on separate occasions who were crying. I felt bad for them but unfortunately looked over at them when they wanted to cry in private. I didn’t know what to do or say to a girl who was crying to make her feel better but felt bad to see these two women cry and wanted to make them feel better.
Like Washington Terrace Elementary, there were some women who were nice to me at South Ogden Junior High School but most were nice because they felt sorry for me. I do remember there was a girl named Heidi who would walk up and give me a hug every time she saw me! I don’t know if she felt sorry for me or thought I was cute. I also developed my first crush on a girl that I would long for a date since the 7th Grade. I always had a thing for redheads and Cheryl had nice red hair, a beautiful smile, and a nice personality. I remember obsessing on how I could convince this chick to go out with a special education student like me. I missed a lot of schoolwork in the English and Math areas as I entered Junior high school. Perhaps I’ll write a future blog dedicated to Mrs. Hauret who was a Special Education Math teacher who convinced me that I can catch up and am not a worthless cause. She was the reason I worked so hard to catch up and eventually ended up out of Special Education when very few teachers would envision I would ever do this! Of course the students who considered me a "Retard" would be even in more disbelief! I actually left Junior High school with a lot of confidence that I never had before and didn’t think of myself as dumb as before. I actually felt for the first time that I was normal in the way of academics. I also falsely assumed that I didn’t miss anything in socializing with people and found that I was horrible in socializing with others but never realized or even had a clue that I had no idea how to make or keep friends.
My Sophomore year in high school was a year I had successes and a bunch of failures. In the 9th grade I struggled in Pre-Algebra which was a course taken by 7th graders but at Bonneville I started performing great in my first Math Class and realized that I could do it. I also tried to socialize but quickly realized most of the people I talked to (including women) were only being nice to me and would rather I not talk to them. I met one of Cheryl’s friends (Natalie) and talked to her on the phone which was a first and it was surprising I could carry on conversations with her for an hour. I admit I was also trying to use Natalie as a way to meet the Girl I had interests since the 7th grade! I also encountered some nasty rejections. One girl whom I am still perplexed as to why she hated me when she acted like she liked me and gave me her phone number when I asked for it. I told her I would call at 7 PM but she never answered the phone. I should have taken this as a message that Darla who seemed to have interests in me at first, no longer had any interests in me! One night I called and a guy answered which I assumed was her brother, now I realize he was probably a boyfriend. She answered the phone and as soon as I told her who I was, she slammed the phone hard when hanging up to give me the dramatic effect that she was pissed at me. This was the most depressing night I ever had and if I look at it, perhaps there was something I did to cause this. After all, the night I said I would call she never answered which I should have taken as a sign that even though she gave me her number, she was no longer interested in talking to me. This was hard for me to accept and I never recovered from this rejection and feared asking Cheryl out on a date fearing that something like this would happen with her. Like Darla, Cheryl seemed to be interested in me and I feared that Cheryl would do the same thing and I couldn’t take being rejected by the girl I had a crush on since the 7th grade. Darla’s rejection was bad enough and made me depressed and afraid of women for the rest of my high school years and even to this day I fear this kind of rejection since It’s hard enough not to have many women who like me let alone having one I thought liked me or was once interested in me but for some reason lost interest in me. Cheryl probably wondered why I would often visit her at the video store she worked for (she invited me to see her after seeing me at a nearby store one day) but never asked her out or even asked for her phone number! She even heard rumors that I was into her so she probably wondered even more why I would talk to her friend Natalie and probably knew about Darla rejecting me but wondered why I didn’t have the guts to talk to her on the phone or ask her out. The truth was I was too afraid I would suddenly lose her interest like Darla and suddenly get rejected and it would come as a total surprise like Darla’s rejection. I also felt I just didn’t measure up to her since I thought of her as so beautiful and out of my league!
In addition to rejection by women, I had a lot of guys who made fun of me and even predicted that I would never get married because I am a "loser". I also got into fights because PE Courses were all about winning and when I screwed up costing my classmates the game they were pissed! I dreaded PE and was always the last person picked for teams and the people who were forced to selected me let me know they cannot stand me! I also had people try to egg me on picking fights with me. One of the worst incidents was when a student who played for the Bonneville Laker football team took his hand making a fist and acting like he was punching me in slow motion and just before he bumped my forehead (he would always do it), I shoved his hand out of my way. I had to be careful because he wanted to kick my ass. It just was the cool thing to do! I remember I also had a student who seen me as lacking empathy and referred to me as the devil and after finding out I wasn’t LDS, he had a field day telling me that I was the devil and am a member of the wrong religion. He was a senior so I only had to deal with him during my Sophomore year. Other guys would walk up to me and ask me out to the prom acting like they were gay as a way of calling me gay. I was also knocked out cold by a student during a soccer game in PE. Afterwards, I overheard him telling students how he purposely knocked me out and couldn’t believe the PE teacher believed him when it seemed obvious what he did! I ended up never attending a single prom and really didn’t have a date. I went with a woman named Wendy whom I met at work but she didn’t really like me.
Like always there were females who felt sorry for me and befriended me. At the time I really didn’t know how to tell the difference between women who feel sorry for me and ones who are sincerely interested in me. Even today it is hard for me to distinguish the difference other than knowing that very few women are interested in me and if they were interested in me, I was in areas where women outnumbered men and men often found themselves being stocked by women who were attracted to them. About the only advantage of being someone women won’t consider as a date or partner is you don’t have to worry about being stalked by some obsessed women and since I cannot get married, I don’t have to worry about getting divorced!
My adult life has been the same as my childhood. I’ve been rejected by several women as I went to college to get not only a degree but also try and meet women. I also had women who felt sorry for me at work and school but I wanted a partner and these women were only being nice to me because they felt sorry for me. I remember they would tell the line that appears to have come from some woman’s magazine on how to tell a guy you are not interested in him without hurting his self esteem. I was told “You’re a nice guy and someday you will make some woman happy.” For a while I actually believed this! I’m too much of an outcast who lacks any social skills and you can’t just gain social skills from reading a book! I missed out on learning social skills my entire life plus Aspergers has made it difficult for me to function socially with others.
Last year into this year I talked to a lot of co-workers on the other side of the building I worked at. I thought things were going well but found out the girl I had interests in Lana wasn’t interested in me and she started to avoid me along with her friend Christine. All I can think of is Lana and Christine were giving me clues that they didn’t like me coming to their desks and talking to them. Perhaps I was boring as a lot of other women describe me as. It’s hard for people with Aspergers to pick up social cues so it’s possible I missed some social cue. I asked a friend why it seemed women in the area hated me and he mentioned that I kept staring at them. The problem is I never realized I stared at them! I’m heartbroken that Lana was either not interested in me all along or lost interest after I started talking to her. I also didn’t realize so many women hated me in the area. I though at least some women liked me but in reality none liked me. Now I avoid this side of the building and since the break room is on this other side of the building where these women are, I find myself hanging out in the parking lot alone eating lunch in my truck. I also lack friends in my immediate unit so I have nobody to talk to or give me company. This also gives me a disadvantage when looking for other jobs! I’ve always wanted a companion since it is so hard for me to deal with all the people who hate me, especially the ones who have no problem telling me how much they hate me and call me names. It’s hard to be hated so much by others and have nobody who supports you and will give you emotional support that everyone needs but not everyone gets! Social rejection during childhood can easily make it impossible as an adult to enjoy friends. Like someone who has witnessed a traumatic event and suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a person’s childhood can affect their adult life and the bad memories have made me cry on occasions even though a lot of these events happened so long ago.
Living with the aspergers curse. 