A Time to Forgive

Not that it terribly matters, but I have a “preliminary diagnosis”, that is, a “name” for my pattern of social cluelessness. I’ve known for some time that my son, Brian, has been “diagnosed” (read “labeled, for Special Education funding purposes”) with Asperger’s Syndrome. He has also been “found to have” Attention Deficit Disorder. That I also once had ADD is unremarkable; it is known to run in families. AS, it seems, also tends to run in families. It may also account for my cluelessness.

The way it’s been explained to me goes something like this: Less than one-fourth (some researchers claim it’s less than one-tenth) of what people communicate with one another consists of the words they speak. The rest consists of gestures, facial expressions, emblems (things like a stuck-out tongue, a flipped bird or shrugged shoulders, that are supposed to mean specific things), proxemics (how close communicators are to one another), posture, eye contact, and the like. Apparently, while I’m exceptionally good at verbal communication, I’m exceptionally bad at nonverbal communication.

How I impress people in social situations can be compared to how others impress me in driving situations. To put it mildly, I’m one persnickety S.O.B. when it comes to traffic etiquette. Such behaviors as tailgating, turning without signaling, driving too fast or too slow for conditions, stopping too suddenly or changing lanes too frequently have been known to provoke me to anger or even rage. There are rules for driving, they’re all written down in a book, and people are not supposed to operate vehicles on highways until and unless they have demonstrated that they know and can abide by these rules. If I’m sitting in the middle of the roadway with my turn signal flashing, I expect people to take note of my flashing light and pass me by. If they cue up behind me as though waiting for me to drive straight ahead, and then start making rude noises behind me, I’m apt to think them rude. Similarly, if a person across an intersection from me has no signal flashing and makes an impromptu turn in front of me as I drive straight ahead, I’m liable to be pissed.

Unfortunately, there are no written rules for social communication. Further, because of how my mind works, it is next to impossible for me to carry on a conversation with someone while looking at his or her face. I need to look at “white space” or just not focus on any object. This allows me to think about what I’m saying rather than think about the person’s face. If that person is trying to communicate something to me nonverbally, I won’t see it because I’m looking somewhere else. Even if I were looking at him or her, however, I probably wouldn’t notice it. I don’t often know what to look for.

I remember one incident that occurred in the neighborhood where I grew up. I was learning to drive and had just taken my mother to the supermarket in her own car. As I had to make a left turn into our driveway, I turned on the signal and then sat and waited for the traffic to clear in the oncoming lane. Meanwhile, a large truck that was pulling a large trailer carrying an even larger earthmover came rolling up behind us. As he had to round a blind curve just before arriving in front of our house, he had to fairly slam on his brakes to keep from rear-ending us. By this time, all of the traffic had gone by except for a kid on roller skates who had paused by the front of our car to say “your blinker is on, Mister”! Had the kid understood the meaning of the turn-signal light, he might have just waited for me to turn in front of him, or he might have just gone on by without stopping to chat. In any event, I’d have already made my turn before the truck came along and my mother and I would never have been in danger of being rear-ended.

In light of what I’ve recently come to know about myself, it occurs to me that I shouldn’t simply assume that people who play their stereos too loud or have unsilenced exhausts on their vehicles are out to piss other people off. Sure, they seem rude. I’m sure that some of them are intentionally asinine. But, judging by the number of times I’ve been fired from jobs for social faux pas of which I was unaware, chances are that at least some of those people are simply so self-absorbed that they don’t realize how much they’re hurting other people with their behavior. I know that I would benefit from someone calling me aside and pointing out the impropriety of my behavior. Perhaps I should try that instead of flying into a rage?

While I was at Kumeyaay Lake with the guys last weekend, I asked Pastor Mark to take a walk with me and tell me frankly what he had noticed about my behavior. This was after I told him that I had prayed to God about my Asperger’s and asked Him to take it away. He said no. He wants me to rely on Him, not on a constitution free of disabilities. So I asked Mark whether it was like that for him: did he know where he was going and what he was doing, or did he have to wait for God to “spoon feed” His will to him. He replied that he has both long- and short-range visions for the church and that God has been faithful to provide them. So I asked him why, in his opinion, God would not heal me of my affliction. He replied that God does what He does for His own reasons and that we shouldn’t question that. However, he also said that he has noticed on several occasions that I not only don’t “read” others’ feelings in a situation but that I seem to expect them to know mine even though I don’t indicate them. He noticed that I had grown frustrated when trying to communicate a value to his young son at a church gathering.

When I was a teacher, I experienced a great deal of frustration when my students failed to “shift gears” with me when I moved from a serious subject to one of levity or vice versa. Now it occurs to me that I may be just as bad at “sending” nonverbal signals as I am at “receiving” them. Perhaps my pupils were just as consternated as I was, since I expected a certain response from them without “giving the proper signal” first. That would explain the Scoutmasters’ and the Scouts’ responses to my teaching at the summer camp as well as my subsequent dismissal from my position there.

Now, I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time reflecting on my life and all the situations in which I failed to read or express value or emotion when interacting with others. I’m beginning to compile quite a list of people whom I should either forgive or ask for their forgiveness. I’m beginning to feel a bit like that guy, “Earl” on TV. I’m also beginning to wonder whether he is really a recovering asshole or he simply has Asperger’s Syndrome.