Me, Quietly Whispering To The Ao3 Page Of An Author Who Doesn’t Even Know I Exist: I Am Obsessed With

I came across this article, and it got me thinking about neurodivergence and platonic relationships.

Bring on the Pigeons

Aromanticism, Aplatonicism, Neurodivergence and Me

Originally, I was going to call this post “Accepting that I was aro was a lot harder than accepting that I was ace, but not for the reasons

Like OP I'd heard of the term aplatonic, but I'd resisted applying the label to myself. It made me kind of uncomfortable, like a flickering light that I'd refused to look at or focus on. I'd think 'that can't be me, I want friends' then move on before I could think about it too much. Because deep down this term struck a chord. One that felt too much like saying 'I'm a bad person who doesn't like their friends'.

But I am bad at maintaining friendships. Not super great at making them either if I'm honest. Most of this can possible be explained by autism, and my struggle with friendships was the primary reason why I'd started suspecting that I might be autistic. (But am I really autistic though?)

I'd heard other autistics explaining how they kind of lack object permanence when it comes to people. Not that they literally don't think that someone doesn't exist when they don't see them, but that they don't think of them. This mirrors my own experience with friends. I don't think of them that often. And if I do and realise that I haven't spoken or seen them in a while, then actually contacting them for catch up takes a lot of energy and mental prep before hand. Phoning people makes me anxious, even for people I talk to all the time and know that I can talk to easily. It's a huge mental effort to go 'I'm going to call Sally today'. Even then I'll probably tidy my bedroom first, do the laundry, vacuum etc., then decide it's too late and put off calling her for another week.

Recently I came across the term 'relationship degradation mechanics' by twitter user Khoshtistic. They described it in terms of their ADHD, but it also describes my own experience perfectly. The term comes about from video games which have a friendship meter for NPCs which either fills up over time, or empties, depending on how often you interact with an NPC. I frequently forget about my friends (that faulty object permanence), I don't message them, call, or organise meet ups. There have been times when I've decided to message someone and then realised that the last time I interacted with them was a year ago. In those instances I often feel so guilty about it that I decide against messaging them completely. Why draw attention to it? When I do happen to catch up with a friend, months or years after I last saw them, I'm often surprised that our friendship bar has degraded. I expect things to be the same as when we last met up, but they aren't.

My partner is always messaging his friends. He is the polar opposite of me in many ways, but especially in this. If he hasn't seen his friends for a while he gets sad and upset about it. When I ask him how long it's been, he'll tell me that it's been ages. But how long is that? A couple weeks, he says. For him those couple of weeks span a millennia, for me that feels like yesterday.

This type of conversation is not uncommon for us:

Him: We haven't seen Sally and John in ages

Me: But we just saw them. Remember? we played board games

Him: That was 2 weeks ago!

Me: Exactly. Only 2 weeks ago.

We both have a very different understanding of time.

His relationship with friendships is informed by his ADHD in a very different way to mine. He worries that if he doesn't stay in contact with people constantly, then they'll think he hates them and subsequently decide that they hate him too. Rejection Sensitivity Disorder (RSD) is a bitch. I'm glad I don't have that, but sometimes I wish I cared a little more than I do.

He cares so much for his friends and what they think of him. Sometimes I feel like I'm not really friends with anyone, and that I'm only preforming friendship. Sometimes I feel like an unfeeling robot, and the ace/aro community often (unintentionally) amplifies that feeling. The uncaring aro or ace person is a common trope that the aspec community rails against, usually by saying that one can still have strong and intimate platonic relationships. However this is something that I don't have either. I'm ace, aro, and at the very least bad at friends. So what does that make me?

nico: i just ended a four year relationship.

annabeth: im so sorry...

nico: it's okay, it wasn't my relationship.

Update!

Oi, como vai? Estou passando para avisar que essa semana não vai ter novos capítulos. Estou montando um site, e infelizmente não consigo fazer tudo de uma vez. Ele já tem um endereço e conteúdo. Ainda está um pouco bagunçado e com tags e organização errada, porque estou importando alguns textos de outros lugares. Eu até pensei em já fazer um conteúdo pago para me ajudar a pagar a hospedagem, mas até o fim dessa história vou manter tudo livre. Se vocês puderem se inscrever e ajudar com as visualizações, eu ficaria agradecida; e claro, fique a vontade se você quiser dar uma olhada em algumas das coisas que eu escrevi nos últimos anos.

Obrigada pela compreensão.

Hi, how are you? I'm just dropping by to let you know that there won't be any new chapters this week. I'm setting up a website, and unfortunately I can't do everything at the same time. It already has an address and content. It's still a bit messy, with the wrong tags and organization, because I'm importing some texts from other places. I even thought about making some paid content to help me pay for the hosting, but until the end of this story I'm going to keep everything free. If you can subscribe and help with the views, I'd be grateful; and of course, feel free if you want to take a look at some of the things I've written over the last few years.

Escritora Aurora

Escritora Aurora

Originais e Fanfiction

Thanks for your understanding.

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nico has one problem: cerberus (who needs pets!) has 3 heads and he has only 2 hands

Ship Aesthetic Dark Percico/Nicercy

every day i am percieved™️

Radicalize your fanfiction:

Enemies to lovers comrades (also: comrades to lovers)

Coffeeshop Employee owned and operated co-op AU

Alpha/Beta/Omega Autocrat/Bourgeois/Oligarch dynamics (dystopia)

Fake dating comrades AU

Hurt/Comfort Free Healthcare

Mpreg with federally mandated parental leave

Soul Unionmates AU

And there was only one bed copy of the Communist Manifesto

Accidental baby government subsidy acquisition

Mutual pining aid

Free college AU

Fix-it with public funds fic

Fuck Tax the rich or die

Huddling for warmth resource conservation

Didn’t know they were dating benefiting from public resources

Prison abolition AU

2 genres of fanfiction:

1) put that guy into situations

2) take that guy OUT of situations for the love of GOD let them REST 

— You're hopeless at a lot of things, Merlin. Well, most things, in fact... But very occasionally, quite by accident, you say something useful. — Really? The Coming of Arthur: Part 2