Bix dot Blog

Laura Andrews asked if anyone else has had difficulties with relationships specifically related to being autistic, and while I haven’t spent much time on this (because I’ve been perfectly content to be “alone” for two decades now), I’ve thought a little at least about how being unknowingly autistic impacted my relationships, and I don’t think there’s any question at all that when you combine the comorbid social anxiety, the inability to mentally and emotionally multitask, and the cognitive and behavioral rigidity, you get the relationships I’ve had. It’s interesting to me that Andrews mentions the “significant amount of time (and alcohol) for me to feel comfortable”, because most of my few relationships (and probably all of my also-few dalliances) tended to orbit social get-togethers or the barfly life. Relationships are socially-performative, and that performance (which doesn’t in and of itself mean fiction) often either is made easier or has its difficulties masked by drinking. To be clear: because I was unknowingly autistic until I was forty-six, I’ve no way to know whether my relationships would have been the same had I known I was autistic. (Andrews herself had difficulties with the impacts of undiagnosed autism) But it’s pretty clear to me that being autistic without the opportunity to consciously navigate it inevitably made relationships into trainwrecks.