Finn loves lists. As much as I would like to claim lists for neurodivergents and by neurodivergents, I think lists are universally appreciated and utilised. He started list keeping about 30 years ago and it’s been a beneficial tool for him. He says he’s never thrown one away. Photo below.
I make lists when I am feeling overwhelmed, it helps me to see that I am either fucked six ways from Sunday or not as fucked as I thought I was. I have a designated book now, but it only works when I open it. (photo below) I keep a sticky-note cube on my desk and will often write the most pressing, do-or-die task on there and stick it on my screen, or I will just doodle, also see bonus photo below.
Finn’s insistence on lists fascinates me. It shows his preference for concrete data and it eliminates interpretation. Finn’s science is all evidence and precision so the lists quite suit him.
Saturday morning, our talk turned to how perfectly matched we are for each other. His son asked at one point: “Did you grow her in a lab?” It’s not just us being goo-goo eyed for each other. Which, we are. Point being, other people see our compatibility too.
Finn said: “You know, there were only two items on my list that you missed.”
“You made a list of… like, what your ideal woman would be?” I struggled around the words. This concept seemed to be coming from a privilege, judgment, and entitlement that I’d not encountered with him.
“Yup.”
“Oh? What did I miss?” Still, I was reflexively curious. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere close to ideal for anyone.
“I can read it to you.” He whipped out his phone. “I have a photo of it.”
“Let me brace myself.” I was serious. I didn’t know if this would be upsetting. I don’t love getting less than 100%, I do not weigh myself because I don’t like missing the mark, and I have been arduously trying to measure up my whole life. And there was something unsettling about fitting into a man’s box.*
“Are you braced? Here goes…” He started reading, and I listened with my eyes closed. Check, check, check, okay this is not so bad. These are things that would be on any reasonable person’s list, and applied to a potential male these were also true for me, they just weren’t written down. Check, check, check, okay yeah, sounds like me. “Not extensively tattooed,” he said, glancing in my direction. I took a sharp breath which stopped his reading.
I spoke: “On the burn injury scale I am about 9% tattooed. That’s not exactly extensive. I don’t have head or neck tattoos and if I am dressed they are not visible…” I felt myself becoming defensive and wanting to explain. He held up his hand.
“Your tattoos are very much art. Especially your arm, that’s a gorgeous piece. I don’t care if you have a full sleeve or if you want to get a full sleeve or even more than that. I think at the time I made this list I was looking to weed out dodgy tattoos of like, ex’s names, baby footprints, bad pet portraits, and the like.”
“Fair enough. I wouldn’t like it if you had your ex’s name tattooed on your chest…
My ex had his ex’s name on his chest. I actually hated it, I would see it every time we had sex and it was quite a turn off.
…Okay, go on.”
He continued. Check, check, check, college education, no young kids at home full time, gets on with his college age kids, not an alcoholic or in recovery. He shot me a sheepish look.
“Stop. Fucking really?” My recovery of 12 years from drugs and alcohol is my greatest asset. It is the internal machine I fine tune daily. It is bad-ass as fuck. Sometimes it is the only thing that keeps me from feeling like a total failure at life. It is why giving up sugar has been devastating. My recovery is the only thing that I truly have any command of and the rest of my life depends upon it.
“We talked about that,” he said, shrugging, “I’m not worried.”
“Our third date was my 12th anniversary. I thought that was the right way to tell you about that.”
“It couldn’t have been more perfect.” He put his arm around me. “I did discuss it with my therapist, as you know, but after you and I talked about it a couple of times, I wasn’t worried, and I–” I interrupted then, talking over him purposely.
“Knowing your history makes me believe that you might have gone down that road,” I said.
“That is absolutely true. I’ve thought about that. I was headed in that direction.”
“I don’t say that to point fingers, exactly. I’m just saying it could’ve been you.”
“I know it. I was kind of coming from a place of judgment. I’ll own that.”
“I didn’t want to date anyone in recovery either,” I put my chin in my hand. “For reasons.” I didn’t want to talk about it any more.
“You’re all the more perfect for me because of your recovery.”
“I know,” I said.
“Okay, Rain Man.” He calls me this when I say “I know” as a response to a loving sentiment when my saying thank you doesn’t seem appropriate.
Thus far I have not been open about my recovery in this publication because there are so many recovery ‘stacks out there, and I don’t love most recovery writing. It is hard to do well. (Hopping off the Bus to Abilene is an example of interesting, quality recovery writing.) Also, I don’t want to be thought of as just a recovery writer, if I am thought of at all. But yeah– that happened in my life; now I live one day at a time, which not only is best for my alcoholism, it is better for my autism.
Anyway, I sat with the list for the rest of the day. We discussed the list in the context of his autism later that evening, as well as how finding a partner, for him, was like a project or experiment. I offered some of my listed-but-unwritten criteria. We talked about what dating was like for me; and he seemed surprised when I told him that I’d met a lot of men but none really tried to get to know me. They were looking for sex. Finn was different, he was dying to get to know me, he followed my lead, and respected my boundaries… and rather soon, we were both looking for sex, with each other, a condition which persists to this day.
*(I don’t really think of his list as me strictly fitting a certain mold dictated by a man, and bellyaching about it makes some kind of double standard, as I had deal-breakers and preferences while dating. So I have to think of it as a traveler’s guide through the random unknown. It makes me feel like there were actually odds against us, which it didn’t at all feel like then.)