For all you shatter is our seeming, And in breaking we are free

Okay. This is some musing, partially based on fiction and partially on personal experience, about how we fundamentally view the world and how that affects how we then interact with it. It's sort of a meta, but probably too personal to really qualify. It's been a long time coming, because I've been trying to figure out how to SAY it for ... well, approximately three or four years? *shrugs sheepishly*

I apologise in advance if it makes exactly zero sense.

Or. Um. My interpretation, specificially as an Aspie, of same. I'm not sure I want to post this, and may take it down later? But for now:

I recently found a link to a meta by Saucery about OTP pairings, and how they're based on a fundamental dichotomy between the two characters that the viewer finds appealing. Like Arthur/Eames (solidity/fluidity) or Steve/Tony (responsibility/irreverence). Like that. And I was looking at my own pairings, and the only one that immediately pinged for that was Spock/McCoy (logic/emotion), except it was more complicated than that (mind you, I suspect it always is).

So I ended up thinking about that. About that binary and the way I interact with it as presented in media. Logic vs emotion, the perpetual war that people seem to think exists between the two. The old romanticism vs enlightenment debate, which seems to run in cycles through most of modern history (and thus a lot of media). And about Spock/McCoy, and why that pairing pinged so visceral a response because of that.

... When I say I have Aspergers/am an Aspie, do you believe me?

Sorry. I've been watching some conversations in various places (not joining in, learned that lesson a while back), and it's just ...

Misdiagnosed. Overdiagnosed. Fake. Excuse for being an asshole. Not real. The whole thing isn't real, and even if it was, you wouldn't have it. Anyone who says they do is lying.

And I wouldn't ... It's just that I was diagnosed late, only about two years ago, in my last year in college, and even in RL, there's no help available outside of the colleges themselves unless you're diagnosed as a kid, you've got to actually go to the capital city to get someone who deals with adult Aspies, and how the fuck should I know, okay? How the fuck am I supposed to know what's real and what's not?

But that's a different thing, never mind, I just mean that I can't say anything with any authority, I can't answer anything regarding misdiagnosed or overdiagnosed or not real in the first place, because how would I know? If you're asking me to judge the veracity of what a psychiatrist said, I don't know, I can't tell you.

I just ... I don't know how to do this. I didn't know you weren't supposed to say it, and I don't think I've said it much outside my journal? I'm not lying, at least not knowingly (in the sense of actually having a diagnosis, anyway). I ... I don't think I've used it as an excuse for being horrible, but if I have, I'm sorry. It's not an excuse for hurting someone, never that, and if I've used it as such, I apologise (and, you know, tell me, you're allowed to tell me, you can absolutely tell me to back the hell off and shut up, yes, please?).

And I don't even know why I'm panicking, I just ...

I'm not lying to you. Not knowingly. And I apologise if I've hurt people.

... Okay. I'm just going to preface this with some information, so can you judge just how much I'm talking out of my arse. I have never been in a relationship (barring two weeks once when I was 18, which I found ... strange and bizarre, and mildly uncomfortable). I am fairly contently asexual, and have never noticably felt sexual attraction for ... well, anyone. I'm also an Aspie, and severely unsocial, to the point where most social situations (at least without a set purpose like a shared interest/activity) sort of baffle me.

I am also, for the record, in my mid-twenties, and perfectly content with all of the above, though it's taken me a lot of work to get to that point.

Now. I've been involved recently in a lot of conversations about relationships, and infidelity in particular (how, I'm not sure, why do people ask me these things, is it not obvious I'm sort of woefully unqualified to have an opinion?). Also, conversations about polyamory and open relationships, and just ... relationships involving multiple people, basically. People asking me what do I think of this, and how would I feel if that (usually devolving, once I've given my answer, to how the hell can you think that), and so on and so forth.

I do, in fact, have an opinion. Just the one, actually. Just from a general overview of all those conversations and scenarios and questions. The opinion follows thusly:

Why the fuck do people not TALK about these things, before getting into relationships (or at least in the early stages of one)?

Actually, why do people not talk in general? At least half the problems people posit in these conversations would have been, if not solved, at least revealed at a much earlier date, if it was socially acceptable to set boundaries before getting heavily involved in a relationship.

Okay. So. This is possibly not the place for this, but I don't have anywhere else at present, so here it's going. Sorry about that.

If you have to/want to deal with me at the minute, in any capacity ... I'd be grateful if you'd read this first. I'm failing badly right now.

Question. Am I retreating from people in general at the minute?
Answer. Fucking right I am.
Question. Why?
Answer. Insufficient operating parameters for functional interaction. Or, translated, I'm too confused at the minute to know how to deal with them.

I found a letter today. Dated a few months back, a copy for me of a letter from my old doctor to my new one. I hadn't opened it. I think I may have forgotten about it. Heh.

It says I suffer from Asperger's Syndrome. *smiles lopsidedly* Interesting turn of phrase. Usually, I'd say that's not the case (repeated break-downs aside), but sometimes ... Yeah, I guess I rather do, a bit. Heh.

Oi. Never mind me. I've just had a series of fairly exhausting emotional-type conversations with people over the past few days, and I think ... I think most of them were kind of surprised by the level of utter incomprehension on my part. Obviously, I've been hiding it fairly well most of my life, even from family. I don't know, since the diagnosis ... My dad thought having the diagnosis would help me. I suppose it might have. It's too early to tell yet. What it did do, kinda, was let me know that the things I don't understand, and pretend I do? On the theory that I should have known? Yeah. I'm allowed to visibly not understand those things.

Whether that will actually help or not is another question. And I say this only because ... For some reason I don't quite understand, my lack of emotional comprehension actually seems to cause people pain. And I don't understand it. It's not ... It's not because it means I can't do anything, because I couldn't anyway. The actual fact of my incomprehension itself causes pain. And I don't know why.

People don't seem to like it if you apply logic to emotions. I mean, vehemently don't like. Even the concept of it. As if they should be antithesis to each other. As if ... constraining emotion within logical bounds is abhorent in some way.

Never mind my attempting to explain that I meant, not that emotion should function by logical rules, but that emotion itself carries an internal logic. Emotion is a system (albeit one I don't understand), with its own rules and cause-effect linkages, its own logic. Theoretically, if you can access that logic, you can understand emotion (or if you operate on that logic to start with, on such a fundamental level that you don't notice it anymore). This is the theory I've been operating under in all my attempts to understand emotional interaction.

It's not working so well. *smiles sheepishly*

But even making that attempt, even making that assumption, appears to be an abhorent concept to an emotional being (or at least, the few I've attempted to interact with on any real level - could just be a family thing, I guess). I don't understand that, either. I can't function differently. I mean, I genuinely am never going to understand it by whatever method they believe they are using. I either understand it logically, as a system, or I don't understand it at all. I don't have another ... I can't even imagine ... I don't know what other way there is. I mean, presumably they exist, since other people operate on them, but ... I don't know what that system looks like. I don't know how it works. I can't use it.

I don't understand why that is somehow an ... why that is ... I don't know the word. I don't understand why it appears to cause pain, or anger. Even, maybe, some hint of ... I'm not sure. Contempt? Pity? What's the word for when someone thinks a thing is wrong, in some fundamental way? That.

I believe the system exists. I believe there are rules for how emotions operate, for how people operate in an emotional context. The system exists. Theoretically, it's crackable. Theoretically, once you understand the rules, you can use the system.

Unfortunately, I don't understand the rules. I can't see the shape of the system. I can't see it. And until I can, I'm not going to be able to use it. Until I can, I'm going to be looking at you in blank incomprehension when you try to explain, and there's nothing I can do about that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry it causes pain. I don't know why it does, but I'm sorry for it. There's nothing I can do.

Except try to pretend again. I could do that. Maybe. *sighs* I don't know. Would it do any good?

I'm really not good at this. *wonky smile* Can you tell?

The World Which Does Not Speak:
Accepting Uncertainty

Okay. This is me, sounding something out within myself. Feel free to ignore it as the ramblings of a flibbertigibbet, if you wish. You may not be wrong. Heh. Asperger's, agnosticism, asexuality (I like 'a' identities, I think) and a few other things throw in. It connects, I think. It weaves together

To go with my Asexual Ramblings perhaps. *grins sheepishly*