Autistic Spectrum Disorder

Stuart Bechman is a business analyst who "self-diagnosed" as being on the autistic spectrum only ten years ago. Despite demonstrating in high school and college that he was bright, accomplished, and capable, he struggled with personal and professional relationships and job situations throughout his adult life.  It seemed to him that he had a "talent" for “ticking people off" without any idea why.  Just prior to turning 40, Stuart finally found a stable and enduring relationship to a woman who became a high school teacher. A few years into teaching, she suggested that he appeared to display many aspects of something called autism. After a fair amount of reading and even some therapy, he came to agree with her assessment.  Since then, he has striven to better understand how his autism has contributed to his life's travails and to reach out and provide advice to others on the spectrum.
===
I was the oldest of 3 brothers. My childhood was generally tranquil and my parents ensured that I was regularly engaged in social activities such as Little League Baseball, Y-Indian Guides and Boy Scouting as well as developing a proficiency in music.  But despite these activities, I grew up as somewhat of a loner, finding little in common with my peers and preferring to spend time with books and personal projects.

I was a very bright student in school who took every high school AP class available to me, graduating in the top 1% of my class. I was quite ambitious and interested in the world, and imagined living a successful life, making an impact in whatever I chose to do. I went to college, completing my college undergraduate work in 3 years and earning a double Bachelor's degree in Accounting and Computer Science before then earning a Master's degree in Management Information Systems.  I was only 20 years old by the time I graduated from college and started his career.

Despite these academic successes and a promising future, I soon found unexpected obstacles in dealing with personal and professional colleagues. In college, I found it unexpectedly difficult to connect or find common interests with other students.  After a lonely first year, I joined a college fraternity at the suggestion of my parents. But here, too, I seemed to attract little more than derision and antagonism from my frat brothers; I eventually withdrew from the fraternity after a group of them cornered and beat me for an unspecified transgression. It seemed that I had a "talent" in arousing hostility among both my male and female peers in college without any idea why.

After college, my alienation continued into my professional life. Despite my knowledge and training, I was involuntarily and unexpectedly terminated from my first couple of jobs. I began working as a temporary / contract worker, which I came to prefer because it seemed there were less ambiguous job expectations and fewer social irritations. Despite believing that I had an abundance of attractive qualities, romantic relationships were few and far between, often ending before they really got started, and usually without much explanation.  I suffered through long stretches of depression during this period of my life.

Late in my 4th decade, several years into my relationship with Jeanie and after she had switched career path from software developer to high school math teacher, she became aware of a mental / psychological condition called Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). She provided me with a book about the condition and suggested that I might read it and consider whether I might see any similarities with my own situation. The book did, indeed, resonate with me; and I began to reassess my life history to consider whether this was the "vague disorder" that I felt had burdened me my entire life.  At Jeanie's suggestion, I began participating in therapy with a counselor who specialized n ASD children to further my investigation.

Virgin Mary vs. Jezebel

Early on, I became aware of the cultural norm of "good" women being those who were chaste and non-sexual. This never made much sense to me, as it seemed to go against the clear and strong sexual drives of the human male - and, frankly, of all animals. Was I to understand that sex occurred only through rape, that women had no interest in sex?


I observed this norm in multiple aspects. Initially, I became aware of the practice of "slut-shaming" in junior high and high school, where girls would accuse other girls of being "too" sexually available (eg, "easy"). I was never privy as to what exactly the accused girls did of garnering such an accusation, but it was clear that it was perceived as a terrible label that could destroy one's social life and ego.  I saw it to a lesser extent with men, who talked privately and disparagingly about girls who they claimed were "easy" to have sex with (but for whom the boys would target in order to get this "easy" sex).  As sex and sexual attraction always struck me as a good thing, I never grasped why such a meme had such cultural power.


One girl I was extremely attracted to in high school ended up shunning me after we ended up in my car kissing and her top and bra came completely off, exposing her beautiful breasts to me.  At first, she seemed relaxed and comfortable with my gaze; but then she snapped into shame and upset, putting on her clothes and demanding that I take her home immediately. Of course, I complied, but didn't understand what had happened to make her so upset. She didn't give me the chance to talk further about it before I dropped her off at her house. As soon as we touched the curb, she immediately jumped out of the car and all but ran inside. From then on, she took extreme steps to avoid running into me at school. That Christmas season, she participated in a school group that sang Christmas carols in students' neighborhoods; they came to our house one night.  We invited the singers in to rehydrate and use the bathroom. She refused to make eye contact with me and stayed as invisible as possible while they were at our house.  I felt that I was being punished for simply seeing her semi-naked.


But then I encountered the same trope among parents and other adults. More than once, I found myself being treated as dangerous around girls - once, my mother scolded me after she found out that I and a (female) friend had spent time investigating an empty house; another time, a girl I met while on vacation in Hawaii and had reached out to see again when I was on a trip to Seattle got an irate call from her father, telling me to stay away from her and saying over and over "she's only 16!".


My initial efforts at offering compliments and flirtatious comments to attractive girls were taken poorly, often responded to with an awkward silence and discomfort if any response at all was provided; or they would tell me that they're only interested in being "friends" and/or would make special efforts to introduce me to their current beau / fiancée / husband / whatever.


At another point, when I was working in Phoenix, I took it upon myself to introduce myself to a very attractive new girl in my office and let her know just how attracted I was to her.  After another awkward silence, I excused myself and went back to my work desk.  She stayed away from me for the rest of her time there (she was a summer temp), only occasionally exchanging ambiguous glances. Not long after, I was let go (fired).  When I asked my boss for the reasons, he explained to me that the girl I had approached was the Managing Partner's daughter and who apparently was engaged.  She had been so upset at my approach that she went crying to her father's office about the incident, which led to my actions being discussed at the next Partner's meeting.  It wasn't clear that they agreed to terminate me at that meeting, but it apparently was a significant factor into my boss' decision to do so.


All of the above clearly indicated to me that reminding a girl of her sexual attractiveness was extremely unwelcome and socially inappropriate.  I internalized a huge fear and reluctance of expressing any such opinions whenever I was around attractive women, telling myself that that was the polite and respectful thing to do.


It wasn't easy. When around attractive women, I naturally become obsessed with their attractiveness, to the point of pushing most everything else out of my mind. For the next 30 years, I ended up spending my time in such situations repressing and denying my feelings, rendering me all but mute around them. Now, I can only imagine how uncomfortable and unhappy I looked to the women I was meeting in those situations.


For the next 30 years, not until my 50s, did I learn that that was entirely the wrong conclusion.

Intro to college & co-eds

Relationship-wise, my experience in College has continued to stump me, even decades afterwards.





By the time I went to college, I had resolved my ambivalence in whether I wanted a romantic / sexual relationship with women: A resounding yes.  And I looked forward to my first semester as an opportunity to meet lots of interesting and sexy co-eds.






But for some reason, that didn't happen.  Practically the opposite.  From almost Day One, my encounters with college co-eds were disastrous, but for reasons completely unknown to me.




The first week I moved into my dorm (the week prior to school starting), the dorm student council hosted a freshman icebreaker.  I was excited about the event and looked forward to the opportunity to make new friends.





The party was in the dorm basement, and the line to get in queued up early.  I don't remember what happened to my roommate, but I remember getting in line behind a cute freshman girl. She turned and made an attempt to strike up a conversation with me, but I honestly didn't focus too much on it, I wanted to see who else I might meet. I tried to be polite with small talk, but the conversation broke down within a minute or so.  I didn't pay it any mind, and I returned to my thoughts about the party.





When we finally got to the front of the line and were let into the party room, the girl suddenly turns to me and says: "Can you do me a favor?  Can you just stand here for a few minutes?  I need to take care of something."  Feeling amiable enough, I agreed to her request, and she scampered off.  While waiting, I took the time to scan the room, which was absolutely packed and loud, with everyone seemingly in conversation; I thought that I might get some punch (or whatever they had) before mingling too much, and it would give me a chance to cross through the room and scan the crowd to look for someone interesting to meet.




But as the minutes went by, I began to feel a bit awkward. I was anxious to get into the party, but the girl failed to return.  What, exactly, was it that she needed to do that required me to stand by the door, anyway, I wondered? And then, as I was scanning the crowd, I spotted her animatedly talking with some guy, beverage in hand, no particular urgency or focus to her "errand" that I could see. Now feeling duped, I finally abandoned my post and headed for the punch table, my upbeat mood now very much soured at the random meanness of that stunt.  I figured that if I was mistaken, that she could come find me; but of course, she never did.  I don't remember anything else about the party, but I can imagine that I might have stayed only a short time while I struggled with my mood; then, not having met anyone else to talk to, I probably left the party back to my dorm room.



My dorm roommate - a fellow classmate from my high school that we had agreed to bunk together - was, in my opinion, kind of goofy and a bit reckless. But within the first day or two, and over the next several weeks, he had a string of dates with beautiful co-eds that he occasionally brought by to introduce to me.  Not sharing his success, I was envious to the point of anger at the "unfairness" of it all.  He even had girls calling the dorm and leaving messages for him to call back. One phone call I unwittingly intercepted when the phone buzzer in our room went off, and I found myself talking with a co-ed who just gushed about my dormmate and college, etc.  When the conversation was about to end after she left me the message, I blurted out: "Please will you call back soon?" or somesuch.  She was taken aback and politely said she'd try before ending the call, but I was well aware that that would not be happening, I came across as far too desperate.




There were a couple other pre-semester parties at the dorm which I made an appearance with the hope that they would go better, but I couldn't deal with the din of talking and the close quarters of bodies.  I was a sweaty, thirsty, anxious mess in short order, had no one else to talk to (I think my roommate never bothered to attend)  and did not feel like I was making anything like a good impression. I would force myself to stay as long as I could stand it with the hope of meeting some co-eds, but I don't remember that ever happening.





That's not quite true. I must have met some co-eds, because there was a small clique of girls that I found out something about them, and what dorm and room number they lived.  Because phone communication was so difficult among the dorms, I went to drop by one afternoon to see if we might all go out to dinner or something.  When I got to their dorm, I buzzed up to their room on the dorm intercom and asked for the names of the girls that I had been given.  At first, I got a positive (if vague) response that they were there; but then I was asked to repeat my name, and once I did, there was an odd pause before the voice came back and told me that they weren't in the dorm.  I asked them to pass on my message that I had stopped by, but I never got a reciprocal response that day, week, or the entire semester.  I have a vague recollection of briefly crossing paths with them some time later at the school cafeteria, but they were rather cool to me and did not linger any longer than they had to.




I did not have the slightest inkling of what to say to a girl that would be interesting to them.  Beyond giving my name, my hometown, my major and my dorm, conversation seemed to drag down quite quickly beyond that point.  This was the incentive for a bold new approach at another freshman party, this one an icebreaker at the Old Main fountain.  Many of the party attendees had taken off their shoes and were standing in the fountain while chatting with each other.  I apparently had the sense that I needed to "stand out" from the crowd in some way to attract co-ed attention; and my "brilliant solution" was to sneak up on co-eds in the fountain from behind and then suddenly pull them back and dunk them in the fountain. In retrospect, I have no idea at this point why I thought that would be a real crowd-pleaser. I'm probably lucky that I wasn't pummelled or arrested, even after dunking maybe a half-dozen girls.  Needless to say, the hoped-for effect did not happen; not only was I still by myself, but now many in the crowd were deliberately keeping their distance from me.  Another failed party for me.




Well, after my failure to engage with co-eds at the pre-semester parties, I turned my attention to my classmates once the semester got under way.  I had a number of classes with over a hundred people held in auditoriums: While I typically sat alone, the co-eds tended to sit together in groups, and I rarely saw the same group twice. They never paid any attention to me. The smaller classes were packed with desks that made it difficult to talk to anyone outside of one's immediate perimeter, and it seemed that I never chose a seat near where the co-eds wanted to sit.  At one point, I do remember one co-ed across the room leaning forward and smiling to catch my eye; but she immediately left after class emptied, I never crossed paths with her.  At another point, I spotted an attractive co-ed sitting further from the exit door than I, so I took it upon myself to wait outside at the end of class and then strike up a conversation with her when she emerged.  Bad idea: When she emerged and I started talking, she only sped up down the hallway.  I tried to follow her while continuing to attempt a conversation, but soon she was at the building doors and she literally bolted away from the building as soon as she was outside. I was left dumbfounded at the building doors as she added the distance between her and I.


Gradually, I developed a circle of acquaintances on the dorm floor I was on.  I almost never saw my roommate, except in the morning when he was strung out in his bed after a night of socializing, drinking, and drugs. The rest of the floormates were a motley mix of people that had a hard time finding much in common. I focused most of my free time either practicing my music (I was a declared music major) or studying.  On the occasional free afternoon or weekend, someone would collect as many of us on the floor as they could find and pile in someone's car to go to a bar.  I had no interest in drinking (and was under the drinking age limit, anyway), so I usually sat with the others waiting for them to get tired of talking and drinking and return back to the dorm.  Not only was it not fun, but it was more than a bit annoying to lose all that study time.





Nonetheless, I made an effort to stay healthy.  I kept my weight down, went swimming regularly at the Student Union pool, and even frequented the weight room from time to time. My hope of meeting an attractive co-ed or two remained a distant fantasy as they ignored me everywhere on campus.



One type I did seem to attract was gay men.  One of the floor acquaintances who was somewhat interesting and willing to hang out with me came out of the closet to me a few weeks into the semester; and it seemed clear that he hoped that I felt similarly.  I didn't, but neither was I repulsed or felt threatened; I just said that I wasn't like that, and he dropped the issue.  We continued as friends for the rest of the semester. He eventually found a gay club in town, and he flourished in his sexuality and in the people he was meeting and the dates he had.  Not having much to share on my own front, I mostly just listened in my time with him.  I found it weird that any gay male would find me attractive, especially in contrast to the decided lack of attention and interest that I was experiencing from my college co-eds.




That Christmas break, my mother got me a temporary job participating in a year-end inventory count at the local Revlon factory.  We spend two days with a handful of other folks, many of them college students as well, counting everything in the building.  I found myself attracted to one of the female college students in the group and inevitably tried to chat her up and get her attention. But my effort generated only some serious hostility from her. I didn't know what I had done to upset her so, but I backed off and avoided her for the rest of the time at the job.





By the Spring semester, I had dropped my music major in favor of a business degree, and I discovered the joy of computer programming. I actually met a co-ed in my programming class who seemed to take an interest in me!  We chatted happily in class and she invited me to come to a party she was having at her apartment that weekend.  I went with hopeful anticipation, but discovered to my dismay upon arriving that she and her apartment mates were apparently chain smokers, the entire apartment choking with blue cigarette smoke when I stepped in.  I quickly excused myself and found something else to do that night.




I was a bit dismayed at the lack of academic interest and drive among those I met, both male and female. Despite the school having what I considered to be a low entrance threshold, I met many students that were on academic probation, barely earning the C- average they needed to stay enrolled. I admittedly had little interest or respect for them, as I could not relate to their lackadaisical attitude.



I gradually discovered other peers from my high school attending the university. Even though I hadn't known them in high school, I still presumed that that our alma mater would be a good basis for a friendship. Among them was a clique of three lovely co-eds, any one of which I would have been more than happy to get to know better.  But after an initial acquaintance, they spurned my romantic entreaties and made themselves unavailable in short order.  Sadly, when I got food poisoning and was hospitalized at school for two weeks later that Spring, they were really the only other students that I knew so I specifically reached out to them to come visit me at the school infirmary.  To her credit, one of them actually did stop by; but she seemed awkward and didn't stay long.  (I also remember heavily flirting with the nurse who was assigned to me, but she, too, ignored my efforts.)



Feeling depressed about my social situation, I made an appointment with a counselor at the Student Health Center to see what could be done.  I don't know what I expected to learn, but I got a lot of platitudes about trying harder to meet others and encouraged to attend school social events.  I also took a battery of personality tests and confirmed much of what I already knew about myself, that I was focused and introverted.  It was marginally interesting but provided nothing to solve my dilemma.




In sharing my frustrations with my parents that summer, they recommended that I join a college fraternity. So the next Fall, I attended the "rush" parties and picked a fraternity that I thought took school (relatively) seriously and would support me in both my social difficulties and in my academic pursuits.  But here again, I found that I was far and above the most academically disciplined in the frat, and the "social support" consisted of Friday afternoon Happy Hours hosted at the frat house with girls from other sororities and lots of alcohol which we, as pledges, were required to attend.  Finding beer undrinkable, I tried to adapt to mixed drinks at the parties; but after I got deathly sick and ending up hugging a toilet for my efforts, I stopped drinking anything and focused my efforts to minimize my time at the parties in favor of my studies.  I never made any connection with the sorority sisters that attended our parties.




One confusing bit of information I picked up during my time in the fraternity was that I was apparently good-looking.  At least that's what one of my pledgemates, who was clearly (if not openly) bi-sexual, repeatedly told me.  Although he seemed to have no problem engaging and picking up women at our parties, he liked to tease me that he was so envious, that he could be so much more successful with women if he had my looks.  But as far as I knew, my looks were nothing special and certainly not any asset to me, at least in regards to attracting and meeting women.




To add insult to injury, about mid-semester, we house pledges were rounded up to participate in a Bachelor Auction hosted by one of our sister sororities. The sorority would be bidding on us bachelors for some task or errand to be done for them - essentially just spending time with the winning bidder as she wished. Not having any idea how one was supposed to participate in a Bachelor Auction, I simply went along with my fellow pledges to stand on stage as we were presented one at a time to the crowd by the auctioneer.  Like the experience I had had the prior year with my dorm mate, I was appalled and flush with envy to see who I considered to be one of the biggest idiots and reckless and irresponsible "party animals" in our pledge group to have the sorority girls in the crowd fight and compete to drive the bidding for him far above what any other pledge attracted!  Then, being the last "bachelor" presented that night, I discovered that I could not attract a single bid.  After some awkward passage of time for the auctioneer to encourage a bid, someone (I never knew who) finally bid the minimum for me. But by the time came to collect the tasks or errands by the winning bidders, mine had reneged. I did not join the rest of the pledges over at the sorority house to fulfill our auction duties.




At some point, I remember crossing paths with a very attractive sorority sister that I had seen at one of our Friday Happy Hour events; and I excitedly attempted to engage with her, complimenting her and doing my best to be interesting.  She was resistant and expressed no interest in my entreaties to get to know her, so I ended my effort and bid her a goodbye for the moment.  Even though I hadn't won a date, I was pleased with my outreach effort and hoped that she might be willing to reconsider going out with me in the future; or at least be a friendly acquaintance and introduce me to some of her friends.  But this fantasy was dashed when I camped myself at a large table at the library a few days later, only to happily discover that she was studying, seated at the opposite end!  We weren't close enough to talk, but I warmly acknowledged her with a smile when she looked up.  At which point, her face remaining grim, she picked herself and her books up from her spot and relocated to another table twice the distance away with her back towards me.  It seemed that, far from making a new friend, I had actually somehow made myself into a pariah.  I was unable to continue my studying after this, so I sadly removed myself from the library and returned to the fraternity house, crying myself to sleep.




Around this time, I decided that I should just set aside the hope of meeting any co-eds at college and focus on my studies; that there would be plenty of time to figure out these social mysteries once the pressure to study was behind me.  I stopped trying to introduce myself to any co-eds, I kept my head down and avoided any eye contact - certainly, in order to avoid torturing myself with any hope of meeting someone who would then spurn and avoid me.  I preferred to be invisible to being actively rejected and avoided.




By my 3rd year in college, I had quit the fraternity (having been physically assaulted by one of the "brothers" for unknowingly insulting him) and taken up residence in an off-campus apartment with another ex-frat member. He was more sociable than me, and at one point he brought me along to meet a clique of college girls also living off-campus. Two of them smoked, which immediately turned me off; but the 3rd girl did not and was quite cute, I took an interest in getting to know her.  She was initially friendly enough, but at a point where the others had temporarily left the room and we were alone, I moved in closer to increase our intimacy, at which point she matched my move to keep the distance between us.  All the memories of the other, prior co-ed rejections crashed down on me at that point and I was paralyzed until the others returned to the room.  The girls were hosting a house party later that night, of which we were guests; and prior to the start of the party, I talked myself into not reading anything into the step-back, that perhaps she would be more approachable once the party was under way. But once the party started, she continued to ignore me while giving her attentions to several other men in attendance, even disappearing repeatedly into the back bedroom with one or more of them throughout the night. It was absolutely awful, made worse for me by being stuck at the party until my apartment mate, who drove us to the party, was ready to go some hours later.




I have spent many years since then trying to make sense of this alienation at college.  As terrible as it was, though, I know that I was not all that unique; that (too) many young men have similar experiences in college. But knowing this, I cannot fathom why the Student Health Center did not have a better set of solutions to offer when I asked them for help?




A few years ago, someone pointed out that I had started college at a younger age than most (I was just shy of 17, whereas most college students are at least 18 when they enroll); and that year would have made a huge difference in maturity and attraction. No college co-ed would have any interest in a 17-year-old teenager when they had easy and generous opportunities to meet and date more mature men in their early 20s. And I would not have had any understanding of this fact when I left for college.





Another suggested explanation was that my Asperger's traits probably kicked in around these uncomfortable social situations, causing me to become closed down and angry-looking. (And I am told that I can look extremely angry when I am closed down.) I certainly felt frustrated and angry over my failure to meet anyone during my college years, and both of these explanations could very well have contributed to much of my alienation.




A postscript: After spectacularly failing to generate any job offers or interests through the Job Recruitment Office upon completing my Bachelor's degree, I enrolled into a Master's program to give me time to figure out how I was going to successfully enter the job market.  I remember three attractive co-eds making my acquaintance at various times during my Master's program; and in retrospect, they were probably genuinely interested in getting to know me. But by that point I had become so jaded and suspicious towards co-eds, I offered little more than a minimum of conversation until they gave up.