When you’re abnormal, you just don’t know what normal is.
Sure, that seems like an obvious fact, but here’s how it complicates things:
I was complaining to talking with my other boss, sharing how I hated feeling like I had this strange, weirdly deviant need for at least some affirmation on my work. I was reassured:
“Hunter, I think that’s just a human thing.”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t know if it’s just a human thing.”
The Life Autistic is this translucent bubble, to where my own experiences, joys, and ires are all within the lens of things human, cyborg, robot, and straight up autistic.
For example, I get unusually giddy about the BattleBots show, and I’m almost ritualistic about scouring the BattleBots Reddit afterward.
My Fridays in summer just aren’t complete without it.
And that seems weird, a little unusual.
But then I discovered that’s actually kinda what BattleBots fans do, autistic or not.
I never really know. I try to know.
Quite often I just don’t know what parts of me are the autistic experience and what’s just part of being a normal human.
I’ve been around a while, thought. Survived this long.
Sometimes you just see enough of life to understand what ‘normal’ should be.
The other day, I was told a story:
“I had to cancel on someone because of my birthday. So Hunter, knowing that, what do you think the normal, human response would be?”
“Oh, something like — ‘Oh, happy birthday then! Hope you enjoy your special day; we’ll catch up later?”
She sighed.
“YES. Of course, that’s what a normal person would say!”
Imagine that, me knowing the ‘normal person’ response.
The Life Autistic 