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this blog post comes after a conversation between myself, my friend sam, and GhoulLover3000 & (4iama)raindog(2). this blog post is about a few things. for me, it started out as being about women / girls, then it became about everyone & well, not everything, but a few things, including women / girls, and my relationships with them
it's always been easier for me to make friends with guys.
ever since i was a kid. my first bullies were girls, pretty girls that were both blond and neurotypical. i guess the blondness isn't important, but the neurotypicality, the typicality, is. currently, there's someone at the IOP i go to who honestly has a similar dynamic with me - 'calling me out' for things i don't do wrong, like telling 'inappropriate' jokes (that make people laugh), all while she isn't a group leader, insinuating i have a 'victim mindset' for my saying my physical disability affects so much of my life that it defines it (it does!) - but she has pink hair. but she is pretty, and while she isn't neurotypical, she is definitely not autistic. when i say they were bullies, i don't mean they were actively mean or violent to me. i mean they were cruel in that they were fake-nice, and unless they were also autistic or "weird," most girls looked down on me. they were always more mature than me, and they knew it, never down for getting dirty or showing more than an appropriate level of passion about anything other than the appropriate topics. i got along more with the boys, because the boys were kind of already culturally-neurodivergent, or "weird" ("ew! boys are weird!"); gross, passionate, immature, funny, not worried about being pretty. i recognize, now, of course, that this was because they were allowed this while girls weren't. it was an example of the patriarchy at work; girls aren’t allowed to be gross, passionate, immature, or funny, or ugly, so girls instead look down on people who are, who are “weird,” and neurodivergent people are “weird” regardless of gender or age. or something. which is why it was easier to make friends with boys, because boys weren’t being rushed to grow up and so thought i was fun instead of worthy of being made fun of. i guess it was something that hurt everyone, and i know mine is only one perspective on it. but as i've mentioned, even now, girls - women, now, now that we're all in our young-adulthood - are hard to make friends with. i still feel that fake-niceness and harsh, grating judgment. i only have a few friends that are women. one is my childhood best friend. the other four or so are nonbinary & trans women who are very, very delightfully "weird" and at least one is, like me, diagnosed autistic. the rest of my friends, the rest of...people i tend to want to connect with? guys. almost all guys. part of this is easily explained by the fact that i am very, very delightfully gay, but another part...is pain, old pain.
i don't really think gender matters, and i laugh openly at people who do. people who say that girls are like this and boys are like that, women are like this and guys are like that, perhaps there is some limit merit to it anecdotally & sociologically when it comes to child development, but that's it. girls are nothing, boys are nothing, women are nothing, guys are nothing, people are everything.
so then that pain i feel, that old pain, is not pointing just to 'how women are' or 'how girls were' ha! can you imagine?, benny's incel arc but instead, to how neurotypical culture, culture that even promotes typicality as some kind of baseline, is actively harmful. not just to young, autistic trans boys who don't know they're boys, but to everyone. i've a few friends that were girls or girl-adjacent, sam, GhoulLover3000, raindog included, and growing up wasn't exactly easier for them. a few similarities i took note of is whether we were put in the special ed(ucation) group or the gifted group, we were all judged in that harsh & grating way. slow at some things, smart with others, "please demonstrate your IQ for us;" drawing perfect circles, or attempting to, some of us seated next to problematic kids, some of us were the problematic kids.
i was problematic.
i was a bully even while i was bullied; i tied up another autistic kid with jump rope 'cause he wouldn't stop making weird noises and touching people without asking. i was loud, i made weird noises, i touched people without asking. not in the same way, not to the same degree, but hell, i bit people. i was clamoring for friendship while drinking water out of a dog bowl because i was that much of a werewolf kid. my dream world (literally called "dreamworld," that's not very original) was so expansive that i adopted other kids into it and gave them rules for it like a little cult leader. i should never have been told what God was, i thought i could've been one myself. my mother saw this problematic-freak-shit in me, too, i think that's why she began mixing up my name with our actual old dog's. 'cause i wouldn't listen when it was time to come to dinner, or stop playing Poptropica (anyone remember Poptropica?). she would get so exasperated, it was the exact same feeling of annoyance, shared between her and me, and her and our old dog. (rest in peace, Maja. you grumpy old lady.) werewolf kid, dog kid, dog adult, same fucking thing.
i've described the feeling of being problematic, being autistic in public, being "weird" around "normal" people, as like having a gun aimed at your head from behind. you know it's there, but you can't see it. you turn around, but it's not there, but it is, you're not paranoid, you are being left out, you are being talked about, the people you want to make friends with don't actually like you as much as you do them but they won't tell you, there's a gun aimed at your head from behind and it is about to go off. i've lived with this feeling since i was a child, but i think i didn't always know what it was from. there have been so many times i thought fake-nice was real-kind. real-kindness, that's what i need, that's what i yearn for, that's what i'm a little afraid of.
real-kindness.
i think sam is going to write their own blog post about this. (this: gender, neurodivergency, childhood; friendship.) i'm excited to read it
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allt
i find this to be a really interesting topic for a blog entry, partly because this made me realise my own childhood something i haven’t really thought of a lot in this manner and made me think quite a lot.
i really don’t think the gender of my friends mattered to me that much when i made friends in the first two years of primary school, as anyone willing to have fulfilling conversations with me (i.e. recounting the names of songs that played on the radio, who performed them and random biographical details about them, as trying to read the wikipedia articles about whatever was playing on the radio on my mum’s phone was eight-year-old me’s favourite pastime. there was a neurotypical boy in my class who was willing to do just that with me and it was only when i moved to cyprus a year later that i really realised how “restricted” my interests were. i’m still really surprised this friendship even happened. though, the only thing i really remember about him is his name and, funnily enough, the fact that his favourite song was «пьяное солнце» by alekseev) was fine. by fourth grade, i’d only restricted myself to a group of russian-speaking girls in my class because i had moved to a new school where everyone seemed to know each other from kindergarten, i didn’t speak english and, since these girls were made to welcome me into the school on my first day, i’d assumed they would want to be my friends and, as you said, this was definitely around the time it was expected of us to “grow up”, unlike the boys.
this closely i kept to this friend group and how vehemently i tried to keep this friendship together even though i felt most of them hated me is really ridiculous to me in hindsight but, then again, who would i turn to if i somehow managed to abandon them? i got the usual experiences of being called called weird and ugly, of course, but something i remember particularly clearly is when i became friends with the other autistic girl in my year group and, when they found out about this (she got pretty much the same treatment from them, as from literally the rest of the year group), they began pretending we were in a relationship and, at some point in sixth grade, told me that they would stop talking to me unless i “confess my love to them” and, in response to them, i joined them in, in hindsight, literally verbally abusing her and shunned that friendship. i feel a lot of regret for this even to this day and don’t know how to deal with me having been like that, because i feel like i traumatised her, as i was likely her only friend at that one point. either way, i hope she’s doing well. i was genuinely a really shitty child.
looking back on this after reading this, the way they behaved was definitely due to the intersection between being, well, neurotypical, and the expectations they were held to as they were girls (while, alright, i’m still perceived as a girl, i’ve never considered myself one and never been able to mask and kind of just ignored it all my life, so i wasn’t able to get this immediately). they all (kind of) apologised to me around seventh grade (i find it rather funny that my chief bully tried to be best friends with me at this time while still being shitty to literally all of their other friends, neurotypical or not, and i was the only person they were kind towards by the time they all stopped talking to them) and i still sit next to one of these people during my politics lessons, but, now that i have two autistic close friends (both agender) i regularly meet with, i still really can’t let go of this and cannot say they’re people i want to be around anymore (that’s an incredibly accurate metaphor with the seemingly invisible pointed gun there and i feel it applies perfectly here. i always feel the paranoia of something always being bound to go wrong in any conversation i have with neurotypicals. especially in arguments. i’m really blunt and this makes people often treat me as if they’ve hated me all their life) and i feel they’re not at all important to me now. the most i got from all this is my current practice of being picky with whom i talk to frequently (which once again contributes to that view of me as a “sectarian” that we talked about previously). my only problem is my grandma believing that i am somehow socially incompetent and that i should start talking to them again (and the usual of watching the tv shows that people in my class watch, read books where people talk to each other (all i’ve read for the past three months has been non-fiction about the troubles in northern ireland) and join the school debate club (which barely anyone attends and includes people who say things such as “donald trump is a good president” and do the nazi salute)). while she still supports me in some ways, it’s great she doesn’t live with me.
thank you for your comment. i've gotta say, that autistic girl you were roped into bullying might hate you now. and that would be fair. but i'm glad you've grown and realized that shit sucks. besides, i think i was worse. nobody told me to tie that kid up, i just did it because he "annoyed" me (overstimulated me, i later realized)
by benny // whalefall; ; Report
i'm glad you have two autistic close friends. the three of you must appreciate each other
by benny // whalefall; ; Report
God
been kinda in tha same boat . i dont have tha "widely accepted" story of being tranz (i.e. "i alwayz knew" narrative) . tha girl that waz here just kinda died 4 a bajillion reasonz one week and tha boy i am now waz left in her place . but even when she waz here, her autizm made her more of an outcast than any possible gender incongruence ever couldve .
left outta shit, very few other girl (or, usually, "girl", az they ended up transitioning too) friendz, she waz literally nawt allowed 2 interact w most of tha other studentz during recess becauze she waz too violent . she had no idea how 2 self regulate so she waz just kinda Way too rough all tha time . ofc nopony thought autizm (or ig thought 2 tell my parentz ????) bc haha girlz cant hav autizm sillyyyy (i am Biting drywall)
and yet, she waz still a bully herself . less so me now but i cant lie i prolly still am--alwayz room 4 self improvement yk ?? lotta shit 2 unlearn . anywayz just wanna liek handshake.png abt it bc u def arent alone in all thiz experience <:3c
………thank you God
by benny // whalefall; ; Report
( u gotta imagin e gayass booming voice coming from tha ground . notably nawt tha clowdz) yea bro any tiem
by God; ; Report
Vostok
Well written. I don't necessarily have the same experiences and in fact I've had the opposite. Most of my friends are women/girls and I felt less truly accepted by other men/boys. You say 'girls aren't like [X] and boys aren't like [Y]' but rather it's people being people and it's how we're raised. So I guess maybe that's also why I feel the way I do about my friendships with men vs women. After hearing all the 'locker room talk', the pure ignorance and hatred that a lot of guys have been exposed to believing in - I don't see kindness and acceptance in them but rather a lad culture where bigot protects bigot. As an adult it's definitely way less so, and I'm not forced to spend time around people I don't agree with. So there's hardly any of that gender dichotomy between anyone I associate with anymore.
I feel like I have a really weird relationship with autism and how it makes other people treat me, because I feel no innate connection with other autistic people, I don't have the self-consciousness and self-hatred accompanies being autistic and allows you to internalise the fake-kindness, the bullying, the judgement. Yes, I used to. I used to care a lot until I was about 15. Then I just stopped caring, because I realised it said a lot more about other people than it did about me. People who put others down for being different are miserable with their own lives. There is absolutely no debate about it. Someone who is happy does not pick on another. I don't necessarily practice forgiveness. I don't allow people to treat me like shit because they hate themselves. I just accept that is why that happens and perhaps that they need to find real kindness themselves.
On the note of real kindness, I fuck with you heavy!!!! I think I must have read your entry for the zine a billion times. And actually I just went on a walk and among other things I thought about you and your big unique heart. I think that a lot of people care about others but they're shy in showing it, or they don't have the strength. But you do and that's something I love. Peace out.
…you went for a walk and, among other things, you thought about me? holy shit?!?
by benny // whalefall; ; Report
Bro... I'm perceiving you in my ponderous thoughts...
by Vostok; ; Report
...bro 🫂...
by benny // whalefall; ; Report