The Eclectic Interweb

In other place I was just rambling on about some of the symptoms, well the effects, of Asperger’s but left off just as I got to ‘inter-personal’ relationships because the post was getting too long.

However, I can come up with a very concrete and personal example of how embarrassing it can be… that’s embarrassing *now*. At the time I was blissfully unaware of saying or doing anything ‘strange’ at all.

What happened was that I’d bought a really huge crappy old Wang computer with a disk drive as big as a filing cabinet. This was back in London by the way either near the end of my psychology degree or not long after finishing it. Knowing that ‘The Phantom‘ was interested in computers I gave him a call, told him about it, and insisted he came down to look at it.

For him to ‘come down’ meant abandoning anything he was doing at the time, about which I made no enquiries, travelling on the tube for 15 minutes and then walking 10 more to get to our flat. Eventually he agreed to come and look, and made the journey. This was ‘mid-afternoon’.

He arrived. About 30 minutes later, I looked at the clock, and realised that the wife was on her way home. As we weren’t far from the tube station I used to take the old dog with me and wait for her – no mobiles in those days so if I missed her, hard luck. Had to go, had to go, had to go…..

So what did I do? Well despite having asked The Phantom to come down, and despite his having only been at the flat a short while, and despite he and his good lady having fed us numerous times… I quite calmly told him he’d have to leave to go home as I had to go meet the wife! Had to go, had to go, had to go…..

I think the look of shock on his face should have told me *something*, but didn’t. He didn’t say anything which says more for him than me… and off we went. I don’t even recall apologising for having dragged him all the way across London for nothing!!

It’s odd how that little incident has been buried away for all these years… and for which I now humbly apologise. What it shows is how completely insensitive ‘we’ *can* be without really meaning to give offence… sometimes… often… it just happens.

In retrospect I now find it excruciatingly embarrassing to admit to, but it happened so no matter how I feel it’s part of my history. Steve, if you’re still visiting the pages. Sorry mate!! But at least you know what was happening now… if not then!

Maybe I wasn’t quite as rude at the time as it feels today that I was… well I can hope can’t I?? 😀