We make jokes to each other all the time about our autistic ways of being and the stereotypes we each reinforce. (Neither of us really loves trains, though, so never mind about that cliche.) The love relationship side of being partners comes easy because we’ve had experience with people that didn’t work out or were toxic. As a foundation for a successful and nourishing sex life, for us, iron-clad partnership is necessary. This post is about that.
The experience of two late-diagnosed autistic people falling in love and being sexy has ridiculous comedic possibilities, admittedly. Not necessarily for public consumption, either. The words freak and sideshow, for me, are a positive take on uniqueness. Freak is not derogatory. See: Hot Freaks. The elements and the willingness for love to occur romantically and behaviorally happened first (if quickly). What were they?
Last night Finn thanked me for a small favor. I replied that I would do anything for him, and, as it goes, I meant it. He replied that he needed to check in with his therapist about how good that made him feel. He wasn’t joking.
I love that he goes to therapy and we can share that language. Our mistreatment as children by adults who misunderstood us caused trauma of an individualized flavor. I’m confident most of my trauma is handled and healing, and he is still discovering where some of the wounds are. I am sorry about the things that happened to small Finn. They are so much like the things that happened to small Sanna. There is a certain veneration and respect between us for that. I know what it is like to grow up in such a time and place. For what he’s been through, he ought not ever have to feel hurt again. It’s not up to me to make it right but I can ensure that I try to see him at the highest, be gentle, and do no further harm.
Having similar experiences with adults was a major component for the deepening of our love. Our autism is obviously another, though we’re still trying to fine tune how it works together.
In sharing about that, I’m not providing a sideshow here for which to gawk. There is nothing particularly cute about sincere people being direct, while interpreting social cues, navigating emotions, and processing sensory stimuli. In the same way I found Love on The Spectrum to be patronizing at times, I’m not open to being adorkable for the public. If I detailed Finn’s meltdown and allowed comments, perhaps the feedback might be: “Oh, the part where he had a meltdown and cried when she became emphatic was sweet!” To which, I would have to say no, it absolutely wasn’t. It was distressing for him and therefore me. I have to pause and evaluate when it might be more appropriate to be as emphatic in the future. After he regrouped he had to process: that he risks a meltdown when he is over-over-stimulated and social-tired, and further, that some of his life’s missteps happened because of that. That’s hard to take on top of everything else. Putting the past in the context of one’s autism is a relief at first. Knowing that there are some people who are always going to think I'm an asshole because of some on-spectrum behavior they witnessed, received, and/or misunderstood still invokes a tiny shame in me. It is important to chronicle but it is not a performance and indeed it has more nuance than meets the eye.
In the last year of befriending my autism, I see how it touched everything in my life. So much energy spent compensating. Being unmasked with Finn gives me license to unmask everywhere. (I remarked awhile back that I didn't give many people too much of me anymore. He said that I did have a hard edge, then he added something to soften his assertion. He didn't need to. Maybe I do come off like an asshole. Well... Sorry, I guess? My autism isn’t meant to be taken personally. I digress.) Thus I’ve never doubted the sincerity of his feelings for me and I feel safe. I’m not going to be ridiculed, belittled, tormented in any way. It is easy to be open with him sexually for these reasons.
I see the different facets of him but I wouldn’t consider it masking exactly. He calls it "code switching." I do pick up on changes in his voice depending on what he is saying and to whom but I haven’t made sense of it. When I first learned about his position at his company and heard the way he talked to coworkers, I said: "You're that guy? The one they need to send to sensitivity training?" Now maybe I'm mistaken about the seriousness of his environment, but he does not filter. He says he doesn't care. So he does not compromise himself, just adjusts his intensity. Such is the privilege of intelligent men.
Having similar experiences with adults was a major component for the deepening of our love. Our autism is obviously another, though we’re still trying to fine tune how it works together.
Then the intellect— we’re both smart in our own right, degrees and all. That’s simply matching energy and values, if in different realms of intelligence. Then, there is what’s physical. We both find the other attractive. These are more than the sum of their parts. Our compatibility is wicked and while a lot of it is the actual autism, growing up in the seventies and eighties, and disability trauma and subsequent overcompensation, it’s like we were lab-grown to exacting specs to complement each other.
Stumbling on each other at this time in our aging puts some order in the confusion and ardor of at least my life so far. The randomness of meeting him is hard for me to let go of— and then to fall in love? Wow. Sure! But why? I will never know and I’m trying to get comfortable with that.
However mysteriously arbitrary our joining is to me, it is still fundamentally ordinary. This wormhole our partnership opened would be a shame to squander, and there must be some greater good that is to come out of it beyond our mutual joy and pleasure, right? There's the book and the artwork, there's the dogs, the garden, our families-- perhaps it is on-spectrum thinking that makes me believe that there's some grand scheme here. Perhaps I feel this way because I perceive that life is giving me a fair shake with this awesome human being and I don't want to fuck it up. Perhaps it has nothing to do with me. Likely, it is all just random and enigmatically meaningless. Just a wormhole of time, waves of benevolent energy welled up by co-creators. Or not. Just a life cycle, is all.
Small Finn and small Sanna would insist that freaks need love, too. They're right about that, and they always were. Here we are today, vindicated, and grateful.