How to get people past my disabilty so I can integrate?

Dear Anyone. This is a general problem which I could happily ramble on about, with examples, all day - but I'm not going to (Phew! They cry.) So the following's just tips of very large, lifelong icebergs - I've had this problem for nearly half a century. You see I'm disabled - Cerebral Palsy, Hydrocephalus, Dyspraxia, Asperger's, Caetextia (wonder I'm alive, let alone notin a wheelchair!) And the first thing people see is The Face. Yes, it's a little deformed. It gets me called 'Frankenstein', 'Notre Dame', 'Excuse Me They Just Wheelclamped Your Spaceship', 'Harpic (clean round the bend!)' It's also gotten me beaten up and barred from places a lot - I'm barred from the local Pier because a bunch of girls screamed and ran off when this monster looked at them and the Head Gorilla came out and said 'We can't have you scaring our customers, You're Barred.' That's nearly 2 years ago and I'm STILL barred. Ditto with many local hostelries - I go in, think I've made an acquaintance and try to have a chat, 'acquaintance' tells landlord he doesn't want 'that creature' talking to him (or landlord says 'Has that man been bothering you?, same difference) and I'm not served next time. They had to move me from London because I was getting beaten up/burgled so often so I hit Hastings. Then it all happened in Hastings exactly the same,had entire flats cleaned out by burglars about 5-6 times, so they've moved me to Brighton. I've only been beaten up three times in two years in Brighton - which is some kind of a miracle by my standards, it was pretty-much daily in Hastings - but I still can't get to 'mix in' with anyone, I've been mugged in day centres - my fault for trying to go into them - and I can't even get a voluntary job anywhere because 'people might not like looking at me'. The employers' words and they DEAL with us disableds so you'd think they'd know better. Example - BIG disabled fundraiser, loadsa different charities, each had a stall in a big centre. I was told I could help out with the books. Went to book stall 'It's OK, dear. You go and play with your friends.' (at 47 as I was then - sheesh!) Went to every other stall in the place and volunteered, got turned down by the lot. Again, could give very many other examples but I won't for the sake of brevity. So after having had my head caved in by a guy with chunky rings on cos I didn't have enough money to be worth mugging, legs intentionally burned by someone who didn't want a spazmo working in 'their' day centre (she was only a customer but her 'crew' kinda bossed the area) all my teeth kicked out by Doc Marten boots, given multiple knife wounds (got the scars) I just sit in Brighton and flat don't know what to try next. I've volunteered left right and centre - especially in the centres! - no joy. I've got 16 good quals - get turned down for everything because 'what could that spazz do?' (That's been going on forever, so I've got quals. but almost no real-life experience which is infuriating beyond belief.) I've never had friends/been out with groups (not counting supervised day centre/group home groups) and I've for sure never had relationships. All for the same reason - the disability deforms my face/posture (and the Aspergers' makes it difficult for me to know when people are extracting the michael and when they're being serious - I've been royally suckered both ways. Including having an entire business stolen from me by my business partner who vanished with the proceeds...) Please, how do I get people PAST the disability so I can have some DECENT experiences with them before I'm too old to care? Right now I never even get to have conversations - not that I'm much good at conversation, get too little practice at it - last try at a conversation WITHOUT getting barred afterwards must be getting on for a year ago. Even the people in the flats I'm in spent the first year trying to get me evicted 'Why should we have to live with that effin' weirdo/spacmo/f'in monster!?!' Now, they're happy just to kick my door in from time to time - I KNOW who does it but have no proof and if I called cops they'd all pile in on me, believe. At least they've not actually stolen anything, just smashed the door in. I'm tired of living in fear forever and watching all the groups/pairs of friends outside passing and wanting more than anything to be part of that way of life. Any ideas? Yours hopefully Chris.

Hey Chris. I imagine that you have already searched for support groups in your area? I have the feeling they will be happy to take you in. There's people who may not be in the same situation as you, but they also face some degree of social exclusion and harassment, making it easier for them to relate. How old are you? What do you do for a living? I am rooting for the support groups as you best bet for social inclusion. Sadly as you have already experienced, most other people tend to act negatively. While I am not in the same situation, I do have problems with social interaction quite often. I have found joy in my hobbies (art and music have both brought peace of mind to my life), as well as online communities that share my interests. Yes of course, it doesn't sound ideal from me to tell you to focus on hobbies and the internet when clearly your desire is social inclusion, but I am confident in saying that there is a lot of enjoyment that does not involve other people. I think it would help to understand more about your interests.

Dear Hershell Thankyou - and anyone else who answers - for answering, could do with all the help I can get on this one! Hershell, the 'living' part's the sorest point of all. I'm unemployed. I've been unemployed for many years, despite having 16 perfectly good qualifications including an HND equivalent, all in Computing. I've had people with zero qualifications - I've asked them - get jobs I've applied for because they 'look normal' and I don't. I've tried job-finding services and hit the same problem - as well as the fact the services will happily take your money all day and never get you anything. Like ever. That's why I stopped using them, I ran outta dough. I love helping disabled people - my own kind - but to disabled people I'm able-bodied, to able-bodied I'm disabled. Which means when I go along to places, I'm not allowed to join in because I don't have a carer, the other disabled people think of me as a helper - which is great - but the other able-bodied ones don't let me help because they think of me as one of the users, which isn't so great. Example - local charity called Bluebird. Slogan 'All about inclusion'. Volunteered to help with their computers, the shop, on the minibuses, got turned down for the lot as a helper 'Though you're welcome to come on the outings, dear.' Same with another local charity, Buddies, again swearing they're 'positive about disabled people', who wouldn't let me help in their shop because 'customers wouldn't like looking at you'. That's what one of the other disabled people told me was said about me. I've applied for everything including working in stores, toilet cleaner, street sweeper, disability schemes (which run out after 6 months anyway)you name it, I've not got it. So why do they always tell you to get qualifications to get a job, that HAS to be the biggest piece of bull ever. It's if your face fits. If you've got a face that would get you a part as an extra on a horror flick - Necronomicon, American independent movie that was shot in Hastings in part, I die noisily in the second story in SOME of the editions of the film, the director just saw me in the street, grabbed me and asked if I'd like to be in a horror movie! - you don't get the job, period. Or that's for sure how it feels. Hobbies - I love writing music too, but I've been trying for years to get advice on mixing the stuff. That's the bit I can't do at all well, I murder my pieces when I try to mix them. Usually. I've got a few right - and sold them. But I've got a mountain of ones that flat 'dont sound right' and I can't work out what to do to/with them to make them sound right. I KNOW they CAN do because a guy took pity on me and did me 2 free remixes. Same sounds, same everything. They went from awful to superb and they both sold. I met him and asked what he did and got an infuriating, secretive smile and a wink and no information! GRRR!! So I advertised for lessons and got a bloke saying 'Sure. I'll teach you. £50 an hour!' Dunno if you're Brit or American, that's about $60-70 an hour right now which is $2400 a WEEK!! I'm on benefits, I don't have that kinda dough spare and anyway, I've no idea if he even knows what he's talking about. He could come along week in week out, tell me absolute bull, take my money and I'd be none the wiser in any sense of the phrase. And the local colleges are WORSE - seven thousand pounds a course. They're prob. superb courses - but where do I get seven grand!?! I love gardening but live on the top floor so my 'garden' is a bunch of rescued pot plants and I don't even know what they are. Just found them and kept them alive. Tried taking a couple to a gardening centre but they didn't know what they were either. Love animals, rescuing critters - little creatures, birds, mice, anything like that - sometimes I'm a one-guy animal hospital for wild animals. Lost me a flat that did - landlord came round unexpectedly, saw I had 'pets' in a no-pet zone and that was me on the streets. I took the critters with me and took them to an animal sanctuary, which perhaps I should've done in the first place but it was like actually having company for once, having them with me. It's now been several months since I've talked to another human being, not counting those who shout at me, kick me out of places, try to get money off me or just tell me with monotonous, boring regularity how ugly and unfit to be amongst Humanity I am. I know that bit. That's why I'm here. I want to learn how to be more deserving of being with Humanity. Hershell, you say you do music, do you mix your own? Would it be possible to get a bit of advice off you that's not 'What's that c***?' or 'Why bother writing it?' Even though I say so myself, some of my stuff has potential and more of it would if I could get a bit of decent help understanding softsynths and stuff. I've learned a lot of the theory but it flat don't seem to apply to the software I have and I don't know what to do instead. I've joined TWO local groups on that front, both bulging with electronic musicians - who are all 'too busy' to give any lessons or even offer any advice, all they want is people who know it all already. I go along, get pushed to the back of the pack and never get a word spoken to me all evening. Like ever. And all I want is a bit of advice and help to get started. I haven't gone to either of the groups in a few months because I just gave up trying to get any info out of any of them. They all know what I'd give bodyparts to know, they're not teaching anything to a newbie and I seem to be the only newbie. If I post my pathetic questions in online forums, I just get flamed like a stormtrooper in Star Wars. THEY all know. Anyone who DOESN'T is obviously too stupid to bother with. End of rant - bet you wish you hadn't asked anything now, too! Yours respectfully Hoping you answer Chris.

Hi Chris I know you've written some examples of the every day difficulties you face, and what you have lived through already. What encourages me most - is that you haven't given up. You face setbacks and keep going, this is a winning attitude, your an inspiration and there IS most certainly a place within a community for you. I take on board all what you've said, and would like to focus on your subject question How to get people PAST my disability Chris dear .. you need to face facts .. the facts you spoke about ,yourself on here. People in general may never look past your disability, a physical deformity, facial or bodily . Will rarely be overlooked, even by the most polite of persons, why because its a difference. Same as people often refuse to look past gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, social status, religious orientation, mental and physical disability You are already a member of a very big club Chris , yet somehow you have not grasped this fact. Each of these groups face uncalled for prejudices at times This doesn't mean that you are doomed from meeting others and getting to know & share your life with them. However my advise would be to begin by NOT looking 'integrate' with people who because of their mentality may never understand you, and learn what a lovely person you are .. and you are lovely I can tell. so I can integrate? Instead I would advise you seek to integrate with people who do understand you .. and need friendship , and your input in their lives , as much as you want theirs. here is a link to an online organisation called 'Changing Faces' http://www.changingfaces.org.uk/ Not only do they support each other as and when, they meet , socialise and hold events. You can begin by getting involved as little or as much as you like. There is nothing wrong with you Chris .. you simply are who you are .. in our own way ,we are all unique. Some of us more than others be it mentally or physically. The fact that you are surrounded by neighbours and others who won't appreciate individualism and uniqueness - is not your fault, its theirs because they very likely lost out on a good neighbour or friendship. Instead get to those who have the capacity to understand. In all groups there are a good mix of personalitys and able bodied who are there because they wish to be. best Wishes & GL with everything Cherie x

Dear Cherie et al. You see, you've missed the point of your own statement. "In all groups there are a good mix of personalities and able-bodied who are there because they wish to be..." I'm not where I am because I WISH to be in this situation, just as (probably!) most of the people on the site aren't where they are because they wish to be in their situations - if they DID, they wouldn't be posting problems on this site. I know there's a theory that your problems become your friends, you hold onto them because, if you let them go, you wouldn't have anything else in Life but I don't think that's always true. It's not in my case, I try to get things to do all the time and it's the able-bodied people's perception of me that holds me back - the circle's basically 'Don't teach him anything, then when he can't do what he wants you can say it's because of the disability, that he doesn't have the capability of learning because of the disability, so don't teach him anything...' THAT particular piece of able-bodied reasoning's like the key in a jail cell, it locks you in and I flat don't know how to get past it. Courses? Cost thousands. Free ones end at 25 (why?) Private tuition? Been searching for teachers for over a decade, advertised in Colleges, got told to take the advert down as the students weren't allowed to respond to private ads. Joined groups, 'We're FAR too busy to teach you anything, sorry mate!' Even joined a dating agency for disabled people. Went to the first meeting with them last Saturday. Not TOO sure what to read into this but I'm certain one of you will tell me - the boss lady took one look at my face and tried to set me up with a blind girl! I wasn't there because I WISHED to be. Not that I've got anything against other disableds, I don't have. But TBH I don't think any of them were there because they WISHED to be, just as the Jews in Nazi ghettoes were there because they WISHED to be, or those with Aspergers are in asylums or 'homes' because they WISH to be. They're there because the able-bodied majority PUT us in these situations whether we WISH to be there or not. I don't WISH to be jobless and futureless, and unable to even do my hobby successfully because I can't get any tuition on the subject (online videos don't count, you can't ask them questions.) I don't WISH to be useless. I've been forced to be in that group by able-bodieds who won't let me participate. I want nothing more than TO participate. I'm seeing two able-bodied idiots today to try once more to get to participate. I expect to be put somewhere putting pegs or the like into little bags, or sticking pictures into pointless scrapbooks and being cooed over because I can spell my name (yes, it gets that bad with able-bodieds.) Or in the case of the pegs, count to 50. Doubt they'll give me that again, I was too good at it. I'd finish the crate off in the morning and they'd send me home at lunchtime cos they'd nothing else they'd ALLOW me to do -all the computer work I'd worked so hard to be qualified for, they wouldn't even let me prove I could do it. I am not where I am because I WISH to be. I am where I am because you able-bodieds WISH me to be there and because you're in the majority and because you have the power and knowledge I don't know how to be in situations I WISH to be in. That's why I'm here. So I can learn to be in the situations I WISH to be in, not those you able-bodieds FORCE me, and so many others like me, to be in. None of us here WISH to be in our situations, we're all here to gain the keys to unlock our doors. Hoping to hear from you again, and others, Chris.

Chris, I've a question for you: what's the problem about being paired with a blind woman?

Dear Soulmate. Initial reaction - honesty here - to your question - ouch! I had to think hard about that one! Then I realised that I wasn't really bothered about the lady herself being blind - what hurt was the group leader going along with the 'nobody would want to look at anyone this repulsive' thing I've been up against my entire life. I would've thought that in a group where everyone's disabled, people would have more tolerance of disability - but you know what? That's only true of SOME kinds of disability. Disabled people are INCREDIBLY unforgiving of any kind of facial deformity - I can actually prove that. When I was at College, specialist disability colleges, two of them, I was 'getting it' from the other disabled students like you wouldn't believe. Mealtimes, not allowed to sit with the others, they wouldn't let me. If the solo table was unoccupied I crept in and sat there. If I tried sitting with other people, they'd complain to the staff about me and I'd be moved to a solo table, sometimes hurriedly set up. A few times I was actually sat in the kitchen because they couldn't find anywhere else for me. I'd offer to help with washing up and they'd let me, I became very skilled at washing large pots/pans! In classes, constant P-taking. Outside classes, if I put my name down for any activities it got crossed off, if I put it back and actually got into the activity the others could be totally merciless. Was like being flamed online, except in real life. I still shiver thinking about it! And the only other person who was 'getting it' as bad as me was Becky and she had a deformed face too. We were the only two in the College with obvious facial deformities and we were both ragged to absolute death by the other students. Eventually, we both got 'helpers' who were virtual bodyguards to protect us from the worst of it - but it sure didn't make integration any easier. Becky and I fell in love and we wanted to get married, but her parents were old money and I was an artist's son. Nothing to do with disabilities, but she was kept away from me and lives in a Home somewhere now, I can't even find out where. But at Colleges it was definitely the Face for both of us - she would get surrounded by people in wheelchairs and have totally 'wrong' questions slammed at her from all sides, I'd push the others aside and get her out of there. I'd get 'accidentally' run over by people who's electric wheelchairs just happened to go out of control when they were right behind me, I got all my stuff smashed up by a drunken guy who didn't like my alarm clock's tick and all my clothes slashed - nobody ever did find out who did that! And I had to LIVE with the others day in day out - I'm not good at conversation anyway because I get no practice but I just wasn't being given a chance. I ended up utterly terrified of everybody - and so was Becky. We clung to eachother as though to branches in a hurricane. We had two and a half years of it. Thing IS - she wasn't getting the problems OUTSIDE of College but it was every bit as bad at home for me. So there just wasn't any escape. And there STILL isn't. I tried to talk to an acquaintance last night and they went 'Do you mind? I'm sure you're a nice guy and all but I have to LOOK at you, and...' She shivered and tried to grin. I left before I got banned AGAIN. Sorry the 'blind girl' bit sounded wrong, I had to think about that one but this is my answer. To be honest, I think this is about the last year of trying for me anyway. If I don't manage to find a way of NOT being scared every single day by the end of the year what the hell's the point of going on with it? I've got a nice little bottle of liquid I've distilled myself and I'll just drink it and get out of everyone's misery. What's the point? Yours respectfully Chris.

"Initial reaction - honesty here - to your question - ouch! I had to think hard about that one! Then I realised that I wasn't really bothered about the lady herself being blind - what hurt was the group leader going along with the 'nobody would want to look at anyone this repulsive' thing I've been up against my entire life." No. The group leader recognised (wasn't hard) the chip on YOUR shoulder so imagined eradicating that whole element would give you the floor more, take the distraction element completely out of it so that your heart and mind could finally SHINE and (so to speak) be SEEN to shine. He was trying to give you a leg-up. You're obviously an intelligent chap but you lack experience and discernment capability so have made your own mind up via incomplete data, to point of CLOSED IT. SOME - say it with me: - *SOME* fellow disabled people are intolerant of facial deformity, not all. But equally, your issue could be being Black. Or being a woman (don't you dare laugh - I've fielded complaints from both in equal measure in my time). It's not the what, the what is always just an excuse for whatever else is bothering them and/or whatever most easily and lazily available tool they're desperate to grab for for making themselves feel superior or less inferior than usual: Nice people are happy people / Happy people are nice people; Nasty people are unhappy people / Unhappy people are nasty people (basic life principle). If people (like that tw*t acquaintance) are that downright offensive then the conclusion is simple, yes? NOT HAPPY / DOWNRIGHT MISERABLE AND LOOKING FOR A CAT TO KICK. If you weren't facially different, SOME people would just find something ELSE to (cough!) react to. Get it? So yes, you have a pre-carved echelon (how nice to know your pack and not have to explore for decades!), and out of that echelon, *some* of its members will be nice (sympathetic/empathetic, accommodating, tolerant, whatever) and some will be rhymes-with-punts. BECAUSE THEY'RE PEOPLE. So don't blame your face or anything else (in fact, most likely someone earlier had been nasty to HER and she was trying to pass it on, as in, offload it). PARTICULARLY as it's a godsend in how it acts as an early litmus-ing test regarding who's your type of person and who distinctly isn't. (Had you even looked at it like that?) Other poor saps with normal this and normal that/nothing special/unique/that stands out, have to spend months or years INVESTING themselves before they find out the person isn't actually in their intelligence league! Splat goes all that hard investment. So you're actually more fortunate than them, aren't you. You get off lightly without even having had to invest in them. Life is a basic training army camp. If your exercise obstacle course features ruddy great mountains to climb where the mere grunts have just monkey bars and the like then - what does THAT tell you? You don't HAVE 'disabilities'. You have challenges that most other people don't have. Let's put it this way: Stephen Hawking. There are plenty of Beckys out there, but if you want THAT Becky then - just as there are '50 ways to leave your lover', so are there 50 ways to UN-leave her. Name me as many as you can think of. Oh, and also - what was the young blind woman like?...you know - she who doesn't even HAVE a face! Or anybody else's face for that matter! As in, "What's 'a face'?". Banned why/how? Liquid what? Anyway - cut the cr*p. If you were that weak-minded then the time for doing yourself in would have been AS LATE AS college. You can't be weak-minded and helpless, anyway, it's not possible when moreover all you have to rely on is your jello. You'll have an Arnie Schwarzenegger in there, despite he's wearing blinkers. New prefix style mantra: SOME and SOMETIMES... Start saying it.

Dear Soulmate. OK, so you're a mod, so it's up to you to always take the positive - got a couple of things to say back. First of all - what makes you so certain the Group Leader was thinking your way and not the way I'm pretty sure he was thinking - 'god, can't inflict that alien on any of our other girls! And there's a blind girl who can't even see guys - let's get rid of both problems on eachother!' To me, that sounds a much more human way of thinking. Secondly, re. others finding something else to react to - it's the sheer LEVEL of it all for all these years that's scary. OK, girls get it sometimes. Others get it sometimes. With me, it seems to be a sheer, solid, unstoppable avalanche. I mean, I had to leave a town and a city (London) basically because of it - when my father got left the Hastings house, he wanted to move down because he thought it would be 'easier for me' down in Hastings. As far as a face being a litmus-ing test - it for sure is. I get it all non stop because of the face, like I've been saying. They don't say 'because you're badly dressed', 'because you're too short', it's 'because you're an effin' weirdo and I don't want to have to look at you'. I bet, woman or not, you've been out with groups of friends in your life, had conversations with people, feel safe having conversations with people etc. I try having a conversation and I get barred. Why and how? By the bouncer/barman/both for 'bothering their customers'. Got banned from the Pier because my face - as per always - scared a bunch of foreign student girls. They came round the corner, I looked up at them, they ran off screaming and giggling, King Kong came out of an office and went 'Can't have you scaring our customers. You're Banned!' That was over a year ago and I've been banned ever since. (Every so often I try to sneak back on, that's how come I know I'm still banned.) And there's plenty of guys for you, because you're normal. Since Becky, I've never even had a date. I've TRIED - I've joined dating sites, answered ads. in them and only once got as far as a date. I'd taken my picture down because a couple of ladies who spoke to me said they didn't want to be reminded what I looked like and another lady agreed to meet me. So I went to the meeting place, she drove up, took one look, went 'I didn't realise you were so DEFORMED!' and drove off again. Total duration of 'date', about 30 seconds! Since then, zilch. TBH I've sorta realised that that's not going to be for me anyway, girls want people who look human at least, gonna have to put up with just watching others, aren't I. As far as the 'ruddy great mountains to climb', people who climb those have a Sherpa Tensing to show them the way. Where do you find one of those for real (and if your answer's going to be 'Jesus and the Way of the Lord...'I do try to stick to the Biblical teachings, ten commandments, the lot. They make you feel better about Life - though what they call the Biblical Message isn't as straightforwards as the preachers would have it by a very long way, there's LOADS of really dodgy messages in the Bible, can prove it if you want me to! But they don't really get you into being PART OF life.) I thought my Sherpa Tensing would be a 'life coach' but MAN, can those people charge! Found one online, getting on for £100 an hour - I only get that a week to live on! What having ruddy great mountains to climb shows me is that I need someone to help me climb them. For the same reason you need someone to help you learn to drive a car. You could just get in, turn the key and start pressing buttons and pulling gearsticks but I bet you'd crash before too long without a bit of instruction. I've not had a conversation with another living being in well over a decade. For real. (Not counting 'officials' like those in banks/job centres/day centre employees etc. And those with strangers in bars that have ended up getting me banned from places.) I've never been successful in getting a job - and judging from prospective employers' reactions, I for sure know why. (Apart from that One Time on Hastings Pier, one hundred and ten quid for one hundred hours a week!) I'm 48 and I've reached the point where I hate waking up in the morning because I know it'll just be another day of watching groups/couples/people on phones to other people through my window and envying them all so much I literally cry from the frustration. I don't deserve THIS much rejection. Nobody does, whatever they are. And the bottle? It's Ricin. I found an online recipe for how to make it and there's a pint of it in the cupboard in my kitchen. I'm keeping it there for now because there's just a chance I might get taken onto a music group and I don't want to leave before I finish my New Age album - can write the stuff, can't mix it. Yet. I want to leave SOMETHING behind to show I wasn't TOTALLY the useless idiot everyone's always classed me as. Once I've done that, THEN I'll get out of everyone's hair. And they won't miss me. And the world will be a better place for my not being part of it - of that I'm certain beyond dispute. But if I get one chance to get my album finished, I'm for sure taking it. That's what's keeping me here. I started trying to get music mixing classes at College over a decade and more ago and never found one person willing to give me a lesson. If this lot fall through too, then I'll drink it, that's a promise to you and I keep my promises. Which will stop you from calling me crap and a liar, like you did. I know I'm crap. I'm under no delusions about that, you don't have to tell me that, I totally know and believe it already. I'm crap, ugly, a moron and should be in a Home, not mixing with Normal Human Beings, so say the occupants of the other flats here, you don't need to tell me that too! No offence, I just totally believe you. It's just, all those years ago, I was utterly determined NOT to be one of life's failures. I simply didn't see that to be a non-failure, you have to be accepted by a group of non-failures first. You can't join the party if you can't get past the bouncers. I'm crap at getting past bouncers! If you're willing to be any kind of a Sherpa Tensing to me re. mountains to climb, I'll do what you say for I sure am outta ideas. If you're not, fair enough, what I've said above still goes. Yours respectfully Chris.

I didn't call you crap and a liar. I said cut THE crap. (See how over-ready you are to expect and hear insults?) If your music gets published then take it from me who knows a lot better than you - you won't be drinking anything but champagne! (I hope you pay better attention this time round?...you and your 'Yours respectfully'?) I'm not a positive thinker in the face of adversity because I'm the moderator. That's just how I am. Actually, it's not, it's because I have yet in all my time to be incapable of helping solve my own or someone else's problems/dilemmas/obstacles. I spit in zee face of obstacles - PEUGH! It's called, I've been through the mill more times than you could shake a stick at. So you made a huge assumption there, didn't you. Do you do that a lot? [crowd yells GOD, YES] "First of all - what makes you so certain the Group Leader was thinking your way and not the way I'm pretty sure he was thinking - 'god, can't inflict that alien on any of our other girls! And there's a blind girl who can't even see guys - let's get rid of both problems on eachother!' To me, that sounds a much more human way of thinking." (*SOME* humans!) (And, No, it's because it sounds a much more self-pity-servicing way to think because self-pitying drains you of energy and boxes you into paralysis as then lets your mind off the actions-taking hook.) Because, unlike you (yet), I'm very much plugged-in to what's going on outside of my head as equally as in, and what I noted he DIDN'T do was this: nothing. But what would be so wrong if it had been however much a case of her [I realise my earlier typo of 'he' - soz] seeing a BOGOF to be had, anyway? Surely the end result was what you three had been after? How do you think this blind woman would have felt if she'd cottoned on to the fact or got later informed that some bloke had rejected an introduction to her? I hope for her sake the poor woman (single, yes? - nuff said) didn't assume it was because she can't see or that, unbeknown to her, she's too unattractive? (Is that a "Gotcha!"?) I do GET how you've been repeatedly socially programmed to expect the worst each time. But Chris, know this: negativity comes out in your vibes and people can smell it. There is alarming facial features softened/however much cancelled out by a contented, self-assured and -confident, self-liking vibe and then there's alarming facial features worsened by the opposite. *FACT*. Which is how some people get constantly picked on despite there's nothing wrong or everything right with their face and posture. So you can't AFFORD to have pre-misconceptions and/or be sat bracing each time or you'll miss out on what could prove to be experiences with happy endings. LIKE YOU'VE JUST DONE. For all you know, at the very least that blind woman could be your next bestest friend and platonic soulmate in-waiting. You knee-jerked. You can't afford to knee-jerk. You've been BARRED from knee-jerking - it's called your face. How's about you tell that matchmaker you've had second thoughts? I think you should - you sound absolutely fine to me, a perfectly articulate (what's more - EMOTIONALLY so...that's rare for a bloke [ducks rotten tomatoes]) and interesting gentleman with a lot of experiences that most people can't even conceive of, let alone imagine. I mean, you do realise you could write the most incredible autobiography? As for song lyrics - ...?! Either of those would solve TWO problems (- at least!) in one hit, wouldn't they? (Do you want to know how to write a book? It's actually very easy.) Plus, you're in the perfect place, living in Brighton (thank GOD you moved from "Wastings", as I call it!). My point here is, stop trying to go in to everything face-first, at least for a while until you regain your confidence to become more like Roy Lee "Rocky" Dennis and turn your giant lemons into lemonade. For speed's sake, because of your age, you need to go in mind- and personality-first - via your VOICE - like you're doing on here. Same goes for jobs and applications (- telesales...from home - hello?!). I mean - blind woman again: SHE doesn't want someone who looks human, does she - just who ACTS like it (blind people can 'see' your insides, including your heart, doncha know). What's your GP doing about your situation, by the way? Has s/he not referred you to anyone or anywhere yet? Have you even asked? And what about the National Autistic Society (NAS)? What are they - chopped liver? You see, I notice things that *aren't* said as much as are. Are you a 'provide too much unasked-for information to distract from potentially uncomfortable queries' merchant? I've already hihglighted one boo-boo/self-sabotage act of yours THAT YOU HADN'T EVEN ALLOWED THE ROOM IN YOUR MIND FOR OCCURRING TO YOU. How many more are there in any given week that have - WHOOSH! - gone straight over your head? You're going to have to 'gather the loins' of your inner Arnie to overcome that 50% hurdle of expecting the worst rather than the best. Otherwise, without even realising it, you're going to most of the time/in many certain instances be creating negative self-fulfilling prophesies. I reiterate: one does not have to be facially disfigured to get both versions of sh*t constantly kicked out of them. That's your particular, greatest challenge, that and paving your own way in via the Voice Door. You 'ard enuff? [crowd yells YES] Every slap, every knock, has made you mentally and emotionally stronger than the average. YOU do the math about how uckintuff your jello is by now! Good GRIEF - Hawking's got nothing on you in that regard! And yet he's not the one sitting around whinging in a heap of defeat, is he. Uck me, if he can find his niche, you certainly can! Okay, fine, KEEP your 'trap door' in liquid format. At least you know you can take it A....NY bloody time you like! So, then, where's the hurry or the need for any deadlines? What - does it have a Use-By Date before it'll start to leave a funny taste in your mouth? ;-p Try new stuff first - here's your now leash-free, devil-may-care opportunity! I should ucking cocoa! "OK, girls get it sometimes. Others get it sometimes." Hurrah! That's a good start, keep it up. In fact, are you aware of how many attractiveness notches you just went up by, simply from spouting those two sentances? And now - with that abovementioned, misguided and self-obstructive knee-jerk of yours very much in mind - I want you to replay a lot of past tapes from your inner alumbs until you can spot other potentially same or similar show-ruining knee-jerks. And then tell me what they were. I also want to know why you haven't got yourself a little rescue dog yet? Plus, whether you even tried that link that Cherie went to the kind trouble to google and give you? Did you remember to say Thanks, by the way? Hmm, didn't, did you. Is that attractive? (See what results whenever you allow yourself to be too much up your own a*se?) I repeat (not verbatim): if your equaliser board is missing a few dials and levers then the onus is on you to turn whatever else dials/levers UP to self- and world-compensate. My overall point here is this: if you can't rely on your face, your physical ambassador, then obviously - OBVIOUSLY - the ruddy great hint from 'on high' in the form of fists and tongues that you for some reason have failed to take note of (too busy looking inwards all the time, I'll bet) is that you need to put your all into your alternative version - your psychological face (and those un-used, unnoticed and non-considered, *rare* weapons and tools sat in your lap). It's the stronger, more strikingly and indelibly powerful and more permanent one of the two, anyway. Just ask that blind woman. Capiche? PS: "woman or not". Damn right. Nobody here knows my gender, even if they think they do because at the time it served me to let them think so [evil cackle]. And I ain't about to tell you and nor is the owner. It makes no difference, anyway, as I've just finished explaining on another thread. Whether you're a man or a woman or this or that or mixture, it's all - ALL - a case of XYZ sh*t versus ABC sh*t. Same weight, different piddly minutae. You're *supposed* to suffer somehow - we all are! Fate took your 'Pleased to meet you' face away from you. Ask yourself, WHY? Again, just ask that blind woman. (When will you get the chance to see her again, by the way?) But well done for not having ASS-U-ME(d)...although you did go and straight away tarnish it with this: "because you're normal". Oh yeah?! Am I? And - "gonna have to put up with just watching others, aren't I" - oh, really? Can I borrow that 'all-seeing eye' of yours, please, mine's at the dry-cleaner's? ;-p PPS: If you were unfairly and unreasonably banned from the pier then where's your indignant letter of rightful protest to Brighton council preceded by a visit to Citizen's Advice? What - too poor to afford a pen, paper and envelope (or legs)? Nah. You did what you always do these days and [scuse pun] wrote it off, didn't you. I know that for a fact - because you've got the mentally lazy man's tipple in your kitchen cupboard (Gotcha!). And another thing (for now): "'I didn't realise you were so DEFORMED!' " If you weren't so constantly over-focused on yourself and your woes (not that it's not understandable but - enough is enough), by now, given the multitude of data from both ends you've for years got to witness, you would have joined the dots between early vibe/wordage/demeanour and OUTCOME and learned to INSTANTLY be able to tell who'd be capable of giving you a warm reception as opposed to not. See how many tricks you're missing? And you - a functioning Aspergic? WHAT A WASTE OF HIDDEN TALENT AND EXCEPTIONALITY! Get down and give me 20, soldier! Unlike Hawking - at least you CAN?! It's not rejection, anyway. Someone would have to know you really well to be capable of rejecting you. It's a richochet-ing in human behavioural but non-human-driven form, an attempt to shunt you onto a less orthodox track. You're different. Start acting like it and stop going to the normal places to seek out normals. Last but not least: "I don't deserve THIS much rejection. Nobody does, whatever they are." Oh yeah? Try being an eligible male, on the constant cruise, trying to forge himself a love-life! Or Dave Peltzer (have you read it yet?). Or that pre-rejected blind woman. Punch to the heart, punch to the guts - what's the differencio (you should know that already). Comme ci - COMME CA. Say it! Stop trying to assume and pre-empt and thereby closing your number 1 tool and weapon. IT DOESN'T WORK, IT'S JUST *ADDING* TO YOUR MISERY! Final [smirk] PS: Re the bible and everything else: you can't teach me NUFFINK, pal - I'm WAY ahead of you! That's why I'm a moderator and you just a poster. It's *dodgy misinterpretations*, ectually. That and taking metaphors and euphemisms, written during what was an *highly* sensitive and threatening political climate, literally. It's called Pesherim (go google). Replace this statement with an updated version, now, please, it'll do your mind good: "I've not had a conversation with another living being in well over a decade."

Dear Soulmate. F'starters, it's PeshArim and I knew what they were - they're commentaries on the Bible to simplify the verses. Kinda 'Bible study for Dummies' but in the footnotes - usually - of the actual Bible itself. F'seconds, God don't like us spazzes either - checkout Ezekiel 21! If you REALLY want to follow God's word, I have fun with preachers, God tells people to mass-murder. For example, God kills 70,000 innocent people because David ordered a census of the people (1 Chronicles 21)and in Judges 21 He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead, except for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, God told them to hide alongside the road and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap her and forcibly rape her and make her your wife! THAT's the word of the Lord, but is never the message the preachers want us to believe - and there's a load more where that came from, including a lovely part where God tricks a father into making love to his own underage daughter (and a part where one of God's Angels kills SO MANY people, God repents of HIS OWN sins!) Anyway. Secondly - as far as spotting vibe goes - I fear that's the Asperger's in full effect. Us Aspies are SO bad at spotting vibes - checkout the particulars of the syndrome - NONE of us are good at 'people/groups', they even have people-skills classes aimed specifically at us. I'm on the waiting list for one. Wish I COULD have a dog - not allowed pets in here. There IS one old lady with a parrot in these flats, but they pretend it doesn't exist 'That seagull's sounding a little hoarse, Madam...' 'Oh. Er - yes, isn't it!' Re. the blind girl - she kinda wandered off to be with a bunch of friends she obviously knew from previous group meetings, this was my first. Straight question here - would it have been OK, people-wise, to have gone to the group with her? CAN you go up to a group of people you don't know and ask to join in? I've tried doing that in bars and things and it doesn't go down too well - no, I'm not being self-pitying here, just telling you straight what happens - you tend to get odd looks and the management don't like that approach much. Or don't seem to. So I didn't follow her to the group she joined for that reason, I just kept myself to myself. Thinking about it, I didn't get to talk to anyone much because they were all in groups of people who obviously knew eachother and I don't, technically, know how to get to join a group of people I don't know so I just sat under a tree and watched it all. How, technically, do you get to join a group at one of these things? I'm not sure if the answer is 'Just go up and ask' because I've tried that on in bars/cafes and it don't go down too well, so I don't know how to do it. That's where the 'watching others' bit comes in - I'm trying to spot HOW to do it. Maybe - and this idiotic-sounding question is for real - you could tell me. Here it comes. How - technically - do you get to be part of groups/make friends in the first place? You've spotted which ones are likely to try tricking you out of money and stuff so you avoid them. There's groups all over the place. What are the 'rules of the game' to becoming part of a group and how do you do 'small talk'/participate if you DO get to be part of a group? I've never actually achieved it. I've tried the brash 'Hi. I'm Chris, can I join you?' approach - just gets you weird looks and backing off. Tried the sidling-up approach, doesn't work, trust me! That's why I watch from afar, I'm trying to find out how to achieve being part of a group. If you tell me how it's done, I will do it. National Autistic Society are again 'in the queue' - don't forget I've only been diagnosed for a few months. And the Pier Company said as they own the pier, it's private property and they're within their rights to ban whoever they want or even let nobody on at all! The blind woman had a group who welcomed her, like I said above, I didn't know whether to try to join in with the group or not. How - seriously - do you tell if you're going to be welcome in a group or not, before getting in trouble through trying? That's a straight question, not an inwards-looking one. I'm perfectly prepared to say I'm missing tricks but as I've missed them - what are they? What should I be looking for? I honestly don't know. I just go up and say 'Can I play too?' and they tell me where to go and usually there's a bouncer around to help me on my way. (I HAVE won the OCCASIONAL battle with bouncers, but not THAT many considering.) And WHAT the heck - 'You're different. Start acting like it and stop going to the normal places to seek out normals.'That's the sorta thing they used to say to coloured people back in Uncle Tom's Cabin days! That's the sorta remark that consigns us all to gilded ghettoes, where we shiver our lives away, too scared to go out into the 'normal-filled' streets. That's the kinda remark used by the SS to keep the Jews in their place, no? So I'm evil cos I'm not Aryan, not Perfect, not worthy of the Master Race? We're not supposed to be beyond that thinking by now? I had a Jehovah's Witness guy visit that one on me in a meeting once. He explained to me at great length, very sadly, that because I was born disabled, this meant the Devil had got at me before I was born and I was therefore born evil, nearer the Nephilim than a human being. Human beings were made in God's image, as God's perfect and I'm disabled I'm not in God's image, therefore I'm not worthy of being in God's sight and that's what Ezekiel 21 is all about. Thing IS, I don't seem to be on the same wavelength as disabled people either. So do you mean I'm gonna have to accept a life of enforced isolation, neither one thing nor t'other? That's a really big thing to have to swallow, imagine spending your life in a solitary cell because you're not 'worthy' to be with normals and you don't know how to be with disableds. So OK. How do I go about aping disabled people in a way that makes me acceptable to able-bodied people? I'm gonna feel like a cat pretending he's a dog to get into Crufts but if you give me a few pointers - like 'act dumb', 'never admit you know anything', 'always let them think they're the one with the brains', 'if they're taking the mickey, don't let them know you realise that', I'll give it a go. Just tell me. Yours respectfully Chris.

If Barbara Thiering, the world leading expert, calls it Pesharim then as far as I'm concerned, Pesharim it is and YOU can split hairs with her or cite whatever derivative or sub-genre out of many, but I'm not that arrogant so am not about to get into an intellectual arm-wrestle over it, cathartic to you though that might currently prove to be. If 'god'/'fate'/whatever-whomever 'didn't like spazzes', as you put it, then you would have somehow, some way, been prevented from coming into this world in the first place. You were not. ACTIONS! So you have a distinct purpose like everyone else (regardless that most don't use it). And no, I DON'T want to follow *man's* word, thanks, written back when they all still insisted the world "was, fact!" flat (duh)! I make my own mind up about everything, always have, and from what I've *very* closely noted my entire life regarding my own and the life of others - whatever we as individuals are each given as tools that we are challenged to get to grips with in order to sow well thus reap well, all levels out in the final analysis... which was my point: if you didn't have this handicap, that handicap, you'd just have others instead. Just because other people's aren't so 'in your face' or, more commonly, completely invisible to the eye or ear, doesn't mean they don't all have their own crosses to bear. Yours are visible. Yours have an instant effect. You walk into a room? Go on - I challenge you to tell me it's not more often than not EXACTLY like that Wild West saloon cliche of piano and total conversation coming to an abrupt halt as all eyes are utterly transfixed onto you. And not just fleetingly, either. Do you know how many people can manage that incredible and potentially very powerful kind of impact and effect? TOO FEW!, is the answer. Have you never even once thought about starting a campaign or, as a baby-step, a blog - to start the ball rolling in bringing about the very changes in attitudes you wish your average man on the street possessed (aside from the minimum and minority that gets bandied around in the media)? What are YOU? Again - chopped liver? What are you waiting for? SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT? We can all sit around on our a*ses, waiting for someone else to do it. But that way leads to a false sense of powerlessness followed by paralysis and [wait for it] endless whinging. You *are* that 'someone else'. Or one of them, I should say. And I'm surprised you hadn't in all this time managed to work that out! You're meant to be a mover-shaker-leader within one of the ALTERNATIVE streams, that much is - at least to me - bleedin' obvious by now, meaning, the REASON your life hasn't been more enjoyable, satifying, inspiring, all of that, is because you've either been too busy sitting around feeling sorry for yourself mixed with insisting on banging your head against the same damn walls and wondering why all you come away with is a sore head. Put another way, as I said, trying to assimilate into normal society, i.e. trying to be one of the wrong herd of bog-standard sheep instead of seeking out your own and forging the way ahead and THEN - using that new found skillset and confidence - tackling the mainstream. So don't you 'what the heck' me. Not *everything* that was said or done in the past was automatically wrong or ill-meant. In actual fact, what I was trying to say is that the mainstream aren't good enough or ready enough FOR YOU. YET. So you need to limber up. In other words, not 'stay there' - START there. Stop ASSUMING! In case you hadn't noticed, you keep getting it WRONG. How many examples do you NEED before you'll accept that? If whatever I say evokes some negative suspicion and you yet again forget to take into account the actual ACTIONS then - ASK. NICELY. And I'll tell you. NEXT misassumption: Please don't tell me to check out a syndrome I have spent an exceptional period of time studying from all angles and dimensions via the theoretical, instinctual and practical. I can't tell you why I did...I'm on here permanently so have to watch what personal informational clues I might give away, slow-building, identity-stealing file wise. So you're going to have to just trust that I know more about ASD than you could possibly shake a stick at, and what you're talking about is those higher on the scale thus far less functional and (/sometimes 'because of') whom received a childhood diagnosis. Bill Gates, Orsen Welles, Marilyn Monroe, Einstein... - never even had a CLUE as to what specifically was 'wrong' with them (or OVER-RIGHT with them one could equally claim - especially now in hindsight - *actions*)... don't get me started. But that relates to trying to function within the pre-prescribed, majority mainstream and adhere its pressures about 'what to and how to', whereas, I'm telling you to IGNORE all of that and find your own path with your own kind, using your own, unique methods. To forge a new or little-trod path. Oranges are not the only fruit. And anyway, the beauty of your mentally obsessive and hawk-eyed with 'no filters' - contrary to past but still in use, so-called data using (duh) facial STILLS - is that the large majority can in actual fact glean far more data from scanning a person's face (IN animation), particularly eyes, than your neurotypicals, but what gets in the way of their ever realising it and putting it to good use is, amongst other things, their learned social anxiety in tandem with their understandable loath-ness to make eye-contact in the first place (in case the NT is the same (rarely!) in terms of, can come away with the mountain of senses THEY can so deeply discern/glean). A lot of the problems belonging to those with ASD, HF, is that they don't know their own strengths because they're over-focused or encouraged to over-focus on and tackle their subjective-only weaknesses, thus never get re-directed or their various dial settings adjusted or recalibrated to suit an 'alien world'. With that the case, of COURSE even that echelon of the spectrum then need the benefit of classes along with the lesser functionals to redress that damage. It's the exact same principle as today's ridiculous 'parenting classes'. Dumbed down too far then brings about the need for de-dumbing. *Sometimes* - even if sometimes means moreover - ...Give a dog a bad name (label) and you may as well shoot (or poison) it. But I can't do a thing to help you unless you just trust that I know far more about anything of even the slightest relevance to your dilemmas, from both sides and both ends, than you do. Maybe this will help: If this were a case of you looking for a tennis coach to take you, a junior Wimbledon hopeful, to being ranked No. 1, then - which of us is the one struggling and which the one that's already won a multitude of grand-slams? I'm not the one with the self pre-prepared gibbet in my kitchen. End of. No more debating or trying to impress. You either take what I say, WITH the correct spirit, as read and try my advice or you don't. You try everything, in turn, to see what works and how much and what doesn't - to 'unlock' you. Or you don't. If you want your life to change then you're going to have to start to do different things. Very pure, very simple logic. So now to some of the first step practicals: 1. Can you move rentals or could you scour the neighbourhood for any little old gents and ladies who need help with regular dog-walking? Is there a professional dog trainer near you - or a vet - who might know of anyone crying out for such help? 2. Ask the group leader - phone him, right now, if you have to - to ask about a re-attempted introduction with that blind woman (and tell him what you've just told me re your shyness about making your own introductions). At the same time, learn this mantra: strangers are just best friends you haven't met yet. Do NOT attempt to do it by yourself unless you spot a sure-fire golden opportunity. But even then, I'd prefer you to approach the group leader. That's what they're there for, plus - a huge point in ones development toward true maturity is to finally recognise and accept that no man is an island, that other people are, on one level, all meant to mutually be tools at one another's disposal for help with getting along as smoothly as optimally with ones environment. Not JUST tools...that way lies being a user. But certainly an element of them. If you're human, you're designed to be a cooperative pack animal. If that method fails, THEN I'll give you loads of suggestions for how to approach. But when you're doing an experiment with a view to climbing what by now is a bit of a mountain, it's very important that you do things in a set, logical, incremental order of one or few broken-down steps. 3. Go see your Citizen's Advice Bureau re the non-rightful, highly illegally-discriminatory pier ban. That's your homework for now. Enough talking. Go get and report back. ****** PS: Re the Jehova's: whaddaloadab*llocks. But he WOULD say that, think about it. If you're trapped with 'the devil' and (duh) don't like that 'fact' then you've just (hopefully) been provided with all the motivation you (they) need for joining up! (Who...When...Where...What....How.......and WHY. Start using that as your thinking guide.) Oh, and no more 'yours respectfully' - you don't need that White flag on here. PPS: You didn't answer my question - namely, replaying your album tapes and reporting back. And nor did you update your earlier statement, as requested. Can you do it, please/thank-you, and from now on make a concerted effort to not miss or forget anything. All it achieves is to delay and frustrate.

By the way, Chris, in case I'm in danger of having left you confused: when I said 'enough talking', I obviously wasn't meaning you can't respond to the above message, just that it's actions stations time now, rather than continuing to pick apart your problems and obstacles solely and exclusively.

Hello?

Dear Soulmate. Looked back here by accident almost and you're right - when you said 'no more talking' the Asperger's bit of mi brane(!) thought you meant it literally - that I'd had my answer and wasn't allowed to post here any more. Then I saw you'd meant it figuratively so I apologise - it wasn't through any kind of - I dunno the word - personal pique that I hadn't answered, I thought you told me not to so I didn't. Anyway. Citizens Advice say they're 'in contact' with the pier re. my banning - not too sure what that means in reality (they sent an E_mail, got no answer yet!?!) so I'm going back to Citizens Advice on Monday (today being Saturday.) And you're absolutely right - my entrance into any new place is JUST like a bad Western - there's this Ghastly Silence as everyone wonders what anime world I just escaped from! And I've got an addendum to that! Bunch of Japanese in the street, couple of days ago, got their anime-princess girlfriends to stand around me looking pretend-scared while I rolled my face up (I can do that, that's my party trick!) and they all took photos of me. Got a cheek-peck from a six-foot Oriental goddess after that, on the bald spot! I always thought the Jehovahs Witnesses were kinda the Bible experts to a point, they always seem to be reading it. Thing IS - they tend to be a little too New Testament-orientated, it's the Old Testament where God lives, in all his fire and glory. I'm gonna apologise, but I didn't like the way you ASSUMED I wouldn't know what the Pesharim were straight off - it kinda reminded me of all the people who act totally stunned when I spell my own name right on a form. Yes I've got Asperger's, doesn't mean I'm as dumb as I look. Honest! (And if God COULD keep disabled people from being born, first of all he wouldn't have a wad in Leviticus telling people to keep them away from him and secondly Jesus wouldn't have anyone to perform miracles on! OK that's a bit simplistic. BTW - did you know the Bible says Jesus is NOT the only son of God? Checkout Genesis - it definitely says 'Gods SONS' - plural! There's loadsa theories as to who Jesus' brothers are but I don't know which ones to go for. There's even an exact parallel of Jesus and the Disciples in the Old Testament, like the concept was being tried out in advance of the New...)And I'm very sorry for the next sentence in advance cos I know it sounds dumb.... What album tapes? I've got a tape player as well as a CD player if you mean audio tapes, if you mean video tapes I'd have to copy them to the computer first and convert them to .AVI files, I don't have a TV. But I'm not sure which tapes you mean, sorry. If it's anything by a recent guy I might be able to download it as MP3s. If you mean meditation/relaxation stuff, I know where all that kinda stuff is online, just tell me what tapes you mean. I've advertised as a dog walker and general home-help for disabled/elderly. I'm kinda out on a limb a bit - the moment anyone asks me if I've had a police check I'm screwed because I haven't and I can't afford the cost of one right now. But I've advertised anyway (And I've said I can do gardens, which I can to a point - dig 'em over, plant stuff, I know the difference between weeds and seeds, I'm no TV expert but I know enough to get by and can always look stuff up online.) Last bit, and please, I'm not trying to start an argument, just get a bit of clarification. It's this 'amongst your own kind' business. Now I don't know how to say the next bit without sounding nasty to one side or the other, so I'm just going to have to hope you accept that I am NOT trying to sound nasty to either side in what's coming up. It all sounds very 'The SS have determined you've got to live in the ghettos with all the other Jews, so you're going to have to make the most of it. You know what happens if you try to leave - you get shoved back down again, you get (figuratively) bashed with batons - so why keep hurting yourself like that?' Now I'm no Nelson Mandela, but wasn't his whole raison d'etre to show that a coloured guy COULD be fit to live amongst white folk? You tell me to forge my own path - but what if that path IS to live amongst normal folk, or learn how to? I mean I don't quite know how to fit in with other learning disableds - I try but I can't somehow get on their wavelength. Nor do I seem able to get on that of so-called 'normal' people. You're assuming - I THINK, correct me if I'm wrong - my own kind is other mentally handicapped people. But I go along to the daycentres and, diagnosis aside, I feel like a pigeon in a hen-house. OK we're all birds so I understand the odd bit of what's going on, and they try to be friendly to me and I try to be friendly to them but they seem to be operating on a whole set of wavelengths and rules that I understand precious little about. The staff in such places also assume I must understand the rules, I'm just being stand-offish which I'm not, I flat don't know how to behave or what to do next. Try sitting in a field full of rabbits and convincing them you're another rabbit and you'll see what I mean! Are you really trying to tell me 'You're a spacmo, you're always gonna be a spacmo, so stop trying to behave like something you're not?' OK - I'm a spacmo. Retard. Whatever you want to call me. Why all thepunishment for an accident of birth? It all just feels SO apartheid. If I've just got to put up with the apartheid because Society, nowit can't be now it can't gang up against coloureds any more, gangs up against disabled people instead, then tell me and I'll try to swallow it. Maybe I'm just a Tigger '...And the wonderful thing about Tiggers is - I'm..... The Only One' Which is fun in a movie but very puzzling in real life. If you've any idea what this path you want me to forge IS, feel free to say. Please With whipped cream and cherries! Chris.

Well, I apologise too for having omitted that clarifier in the first place so - I started it. No, I know you're not a fragile ego merchant. (I deliberately tested you out on that by employing my 'hard as nails sergeant major' tone and manner (soz, had to be done to test your strength and resilience).) Again, ANOTHER distinct advantage you have over NTs. I repeat, you've got LO-HO-HO-HO-HOAD-ZUH, if only someone had shown you how many and where they were located! Trust me, if you'd been an NT, no WAY would you still be alive after everything you've been subjected to. You're intrinsically a hard basst'd, basically. Why do you think everyone keeps picking on you and keeping you constantly distracted? ;-) Plus, going by how speedily you got down to action (woah!), not exactly short on mentally-generated energy, either: "Citizens Advice say they're 'in contact' with the pier re. my banning - not too sure what that means in reality (they sent an E_mail, got no answer yet!?!) so I'm going back to Citizens Advice on Monday (today being Saturday.)" Excellent! Don't worry, they have to start softly-softly (red tape, procedures, audits, blah-blah). (Who did you see, by the way? And, obviously they were helpful, but was he or she perfectly nice and polite and friendly to you?) And how was your journey there? And back again? Was there any difference at all, no matter how subtle, between the two, given how you were 'on a mission'?) "And you're absolutely right - my entrance into any new place is JUST like a bad Western - there's this Ghastly Silence as everyone wonders what anime world I just escaped from! And I've got an addendum to that! Bunch of Japanese in the street, couple of days ago, got their anime-princess girlfriends to stand around me looking pretend-scared while I rolled my face up (I can do that, that's my party trick!) and they all took photos of me. Got a cheek-peck from a six-foot Oriental goddess after that, on the bald spot!" Bad Western - yep. Or GOOD Western? (Definitely not an ugly one, oh, no.) I'll say it again, my god, THE UNTAPPED POWER! You could definitely command a huge audience, depending on what it was you needed to focus them on- ....OH MY GOD - PING! - WHAT A POTENTIAL MONEY SPINNER! Were you, aided by that peck, already thinking what I was thinking or have I just sparked you off? BRIGHTON - YOU'RE IN BRIGHTON - THE LAND OF THE "OUT THERES" AND EXHIBITIONISTS AS FREQUENTED BY TOURISTS *ALL THE TIME*... including [wait for it] STREET/PIER PERFORMANCE ARTISTS! :-) :-) :-) Is that a plan to start thinking about or is that a plan to start thinking about (ker-ching, ker-ching, ker-ching!!!)? I'll address all the other points in your report back as soon as I get a better mo. But, seriously... [1] You'd be totally and utterly UNIQUE as a street 'performance' character. And not just in Brighton, either. Possibly the only one of his type ANYWHERE! (Later on, I mean. Obviously you start small, as in baby-steps/experiment.) You could possibly draw people deliberately and specifically to Brighton, just for the amazing, once-in-a-lifetime photo opp! And before you say, 'What - so everyone can have free reign when it comes to having a pop at me?' - *no*. They wouldn't! Because - here's the magic bit: [2] People are right from the word Go intimidated by street artists because the dynamic is PRE-SET, the ARTIST is in charge, via the fact that people automatically assume their superiority in terms of interpersonal confidence and self-assurance. 99.9% of them wouldn't DARE, in other words. You'd be the 'boss', so to speak, the one who'd get to pre-dictate the manner in which people had to approach you for said holiday/visitor photo opportunities and all interaction from then on. All you'd have to do would be to walk around in a very clearly outrageous, eye-catching costume - whatever befitted your face/image and turned you into a truly sensational 'character' - with a sign saying "£x for a photo with Mr [think of a character name?]". Let's say a Fiver a shot. How many photos within how many working hours / how much money do you think you'd end up with at the end of every day, Chris???? Particularly during all holiday seasons?? The overheads would be NEGLIGIBLE, whereas the profit would be.... :-) Your sign could even include something along the lines of, '£1 off if you manage to make me giggle!'. I mean, CLEARLY you know how to gurn - right? (You're sitting on a bloody gold mine, mate!) [3] More to the point - when it comes to a street artist license and its fee - BRIGHTON COUNCIL/THE PIER NOW *OWE* YOU! *BIG* TIME! (My god, was Fate busy moving chess-pieces (including that pier bouncer) around for your benefit without you even realising it, or what!) [4] You'd gain a whole heap of positive social experience...for whatever else next 'career' step that it led you on to... not to mention, would get the opportunity to get to know all the 'regulars' (other artists, stall and shop-keepers, etc., etc.). And myriad other benefits I don't currently have the time to point out. I know this idea of mine (first of no doubt many-many-many because I'm full of 'em) seems rather radical, but - do give it some serious, serious thought over the next few days and tell me whether it's got you all fired up even as a possibility/open option or at least got your creative imagination off and running about how limitless the sky IS for someone like you not limited by the usual constraints? Seriously, you SHOULD be an artist (or - now/later - crusader/public speaker or whatever else that requires capturing and keeping visual and audial attention in the way that you - uniquely - can do without even doing a thing save for being yourself). 'For success in science and art [AND ***ART***], a dash of Autism is *essential*' - Hans Asperger. :-) You need other *artists* in your life, Chris, that's what you need. What are you thinking right now? [wiggles eyebrows over-enthusiastically] ************ PS: no, by 'albums' I meant the collective memories of all such events in your head. (Sorry - my fault again.) PPS: Have some more fave autism quotes: - “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism,” - Dr. Stephen Shore. - “What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool? You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done” - Dr. Temple Grandin. - “It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a child with autism to raise the consciousness of the village” - Coach Elaine Hall. - “Negative words carry negative vibration. Positive words carry positive vibration. What do you want your child to reflect back to you, the label of disordered or the label of gifted in a new way?” - Suzy Miller, Awesomism - “Autism... offers a chance for us to glimpse an awe-filled vision of the world that might otherwise pass us by” - Dr. Colin Zimbleman, Ph.D. - “Behavior is communication. Change the environment and behaviors will change” - Lana David, Autism Unites - “For autistic individuals to succeed in this world, they need to find their strengths and the people that will help them get to their hopes and dreams. In order to do so, ability to make and keep friends is a must. Amongst those friends, there must be mentors to show them the way. A supportive environment where they can learn from their mistakes is what we as a society needs to create for them” - Bill Wong, Autistic Occupational Therapist. - “Stop thinking about normal…You don’t have a big enough imagination for what your [my edit: 'inner'] child can become” Johnny Seitz, autistic tightrope artists in the movie Loving Lamposts. - “English is my 2nd language. Autism is my first” - Dani Bowman. - “Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine” - Alan Turing, creator of the first computer used to break codes during WW II. - “Think of it: a disability is usually defined in terms of what is missing. … But autism … is as much about what is abundant as what is missing, an over-expression of the very traits that make our species unique” - Paul Collins, Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism. - “I know of nobody who is purely autistic or purely neurotypical. Even God had some autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin” - Jerry Newport, Your Life is Not a Label. - “We need to embrace those who are different and the bullies need to be the ones who get off the bus” - Caren Zucker, co-author of “In a Different Key” - “I see people with Asperger’s syndrome as a bright thread in the rich tapestry of life” – Tony Attwood - “Autists are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It’s that you’re destroying the peg.” - Paul Collins - “Autism is about having a pure heart and being very sensitive… It is about finding a way to survive in an overwhelming, confusing world… It is about developing differently, in a different pace and with different leaps” - Trisha Van Berkel - “Nowhere am I so desperately needed as among a shipload of illogical humans” - Mr. Spock (Star Trek) - "The most interesting people you’ll find are ones that don’t fit into your average cardboard box. They’ll make what they need, they’ll make their own boxes” - Dr. Temple Grandin THE MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE (and looks never hold the attention for very long) YOU'LL FIND ARE ONES THAT DON'T FIT INTO YOUR AVERAGE CARDBOARD BOX. THEY'LL MAKE WHAT THEY NEED, THEY'LL MAKE THEIR OWN BOXES". 'GIFTED IN A NEW WAY'. *That*, Chris, is my point! You don't need to seek out and follow NTs around. You need to learn how to automatically make NTs seek *you* out and follow *you* around! And it is surprisingly, nay, gobsmackingly, self-kickingly, "doh!"-inducingly easy to do! (Back tomorrow)

Dear Soulmate. Shortest post ever - what's an NT? I've tried looking it up re. mental illness/mental handicap/learning disability and can't find the initials anywhere. Only thing I could find was Neurologically Typical - is that it? What is it? Yours puzzledly Chris.

Dear Soulmate.

Just realized what you meant by NTs - Not Tiggers, right? As in 'normal people'. That's clever!

Watched 'Loving Lampposts' and was amazed by what it left out, really. I mean, wouldn't it have facilitated acceptance if they'd said how many famous people (see here https://www.babble.com/entertainment/famous-people-with-autism-2/) had autism? And you can add Einstein to that lot!

They also said in the documentary that autistic people need a guide, well I sure do. I've been sitting on my fat butt for nearly another year, cheeping at everyone to let me play too and getting precisely nowhere. So I sure need a guide. The two people who are supposed to be helping me still aren't answering E_mails.

If you're sure standing on a street corner rolling my face up at passers by with a hat in my hand is a good idea I'll try it, but... Please, you were being serious when you said that? I can't tell. I can't tell when people are being serious or not and that's gotten me into all kinds of trouble.

They made a movie about me once, too. It's called Tormented Lives and its on YouTube. You can't mistake me, I'm the X-rated dwarf! (** link removed by site admin **) You don't have to watch it. It's half an hour.

You're in America, aren't you. I think that because I had to pretend I was in America to see Loving Lamp-posts. It wouldn't show over here. One of the things that scares me is too much time - I spend it all trying to get to join in things and always failing. I'm banned from another place now near me because I thought I was having a conversation with someone and they thought I was just being annoying. I can't tell. OK. Got a few straight questions for you to finish this one off.

How do you make friends? I mean, detail the process. When you go into a place full of new people, what are the steps you take that let you know they firstly want you to be around, secondly actually want you to talk to them? How did you learn how to do conversation, what to say, when to say it, facial expressions (I'm told I have none)how not to be frightened of them and, more importantly, to make them not be frightened of you? Last one.

How do you get to DO stuff - by which I mean take part in websites, maybe jobs if you have one, get to learn stuff without being booted because you're not perfect first try, getting allowed to have a first try at all? At anything. How do you get them to let you try things out and learn? And would your techniques work for me too?

Yours

Chris.

Ulrichburke and soulmate <3<3 Very impressive exchange. Knowledgeable, intelligent, compassionate... Brilliant!!!

Never mind that, S-T - we prefer cash! (although American Express will do nicely) LOL. No but, seriously, folk - thank-you very much for saying so. :-) (I think it's Chris, actually; he's very inspirational, isn't he?) *********** Chris, I'm going to start numbering every topic and aspect so that you can't get too distracted. 1. Was I serious up there? GOD, yes! I repeat - you're sitting on an utter GOLD mine! (I can't stress it enough.) And not just in terms of cash-money, either! You'd very rapidly become a local CHARACTER, one Brighton was PROUD of (not least because you'd be helping to bring more tourism-based business their way in the process of your own). *No-one* would dare have a pop at you or they'd have the rest of the local community, particularly the business one, including the other street artists and performers, after them, wanting their guts for garters! So, yes, it's a FANTASTIC idea!...but which, actually, was your own...or certainly your GERM of one, which seedling I just noticed and ran with in my head to its obvious and logical conclusion: a practically effort-free way to make your face and posture WORK FOR you, to become a GOOD thing, a thing that made people SMILE...to turn your giant Lemons into a massive amount of deluxe Lemonade! (for which you only need a bit of sugar). After all, you didn't *have* to mention that incident with the Japanese tourists, did you. Yet you did. WHY? Answer: you obviously sensed it were of notable importance, at least in terms of an option that's perfectly open to you as opposed to most other people (unless they want to put up with a very sweaty and zitty face, day-in-day-out, from having to wear a mask...and what's so remarkable about a mask, anyway?...."seen it before (yawn)!"). 2. Yep - NT = Neurotypical. (BUT - the 'Not Tiggers' moniker is all yours so, actually you were the clever one there, as well.) Are you starting to see what you and that brain of yours are capable of achieving now? :-) 3. And, FYI, you're an "Aspie". And, according to you, I'm "a Mod" ('...Goin' undergrooound (goin' undergrooound), Where the brass bands play-an'-feet-go-POW-POW-POW!') (LOL - name the 70s/80s group!). Speaking of pop music - allow me to introduce you to your new Aspie anthem...or one of them, I should say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Fp-omNXCw (Highly revealing) lyrics: "Hey, hey, the clouds are whey There's straw for the donkeys And the innocents can all sleep safely All sleep safely My, my, sun is pie There's fodder for the cannons And the guilty ones can all sleep safely All sleep safely And all the world is football-shaped It's just for me to kick in space And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste And I've got one, two, three, four, [my caps] FIVE SENSES WORKING OVERTIME Trying to take this all in I've got one, two, three, four, five Senses working overtime Trying to taste the difference 'tween a lemon and a lime Pain and pleasure, and the church bells softly chime Hey, hey, night fights day There's food for the thinkers And the innocents can all live slowly All live slowly My, my, the sky will cry Jewels for the thirsty And the guilty ones can all die slowly All die slowly And all the world is biscuit-shaped It's just for me to feed my face And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste And I've got one, two, three, four, five Senses working overtime Trying to take this all in I've got one, two, three, four, five Senses working overtime Trying to taste the difference 'tween a lemon and a lime Pain and pleasure, and the church bells softly chime And birds might fall from black skies (Whoo-whoo) And bullies might give you black eyes (Whoo-whoo) And buses might skid on black ice (Whoo-whoo) But to me they're very, very beautiful (England's glory) Beautiful (A striking beauty) And all the world is football-shaped It's just for me to kick in space And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste And I've got one, two, three, four, five Senses working overtime Trying to take this all in I've got one, two, three, four, five Senses working overtime Trying to tell the difference 'tween the goods and crimes Dirt and treasure And there's one, two, three, four, five Senses working overtime Trying to take this all in I've got one, two, three, four, five Senses working overtime Trying to taste the difference 'tween a lemon and a lime Pain and pleasure, and the church bells softly chime". 4. I prefer to think of my assumption up there (re Pesharim) as more of an educated guess or high probability because in actual fact, you're not just the first (presumably) layperson on an internationally-available forum who had even any inkling of that whole concept, let alone to that indepth degree, but the first person ANYWHERE that I've ever come across, which is not for want of regular access to academics and intellectuals. So there was absolutely no way of assuming you could or would know. (PS, Do you have a Masters degree in Theology or do you constantly self-educate via books and the net?) However - point taken. So, then, no more assuming for either of us (deal?). 5. Talking of deals: you STILL haven't amended your 'not had a conversation with another living being...' statement. Please do it because, as I said, it's more psychologically important than you realise, being a 'weight' that you need to offload from yourself. Same goes for my request for you to name me however many ways of UN-leaving your lover (Becky). Ditto regarding when you'll next see that blind lady or whether you've phoned the group leader re a specific re-introduction attempt? But... 6. Thanks for the fact you did address the dog-walking-opportunities question. Methinks that once you've started earning some serious cash via the 'sea-/pier-front photo opportunities' route, paying that Police background check fee will be a doddle and you can finally get yourself an adorable rescue pup to reciprocally cuddle, care for and love. Not only will it be highly therapeutic as well as joy-making, but, a great limbering-up exercise for come the time when you need to cuddle and care for a girlfriend (although, no sending her out into the garden late every night before bed to do a poo, ya hear?! ;-D) 7. "They also said in the documentary that autistic people need a guide". Not always. Too many have to live their lives never knowing what's different about them and therefore have to find their own way by relying on their own intelligence and resources. But I take their point, anyway. Chris, I was quite surprised to see how actually UN-remarkable your face and posture are (and, in fact, what a very NICE face you have, as made me think to myself (in terms solely of the above money-spinner), 'Well, it's a damned good job he knows how to gurn!'). As for your composing, I (likewise being musical (classical pianist)) can tell even from that tiny sample - YOU'RE *GOOD* (DAAAAMN!). I heard whiffs of Chopin - is he a favourite of yours? PS: Do you like Air and Bassomatic? Wish I could return the self-identificatory courtesy, but, again, being 'full-time' resident on here, I can't. I have to retain my anonymity and self-seclusion. Which, by the same token, is why I'll have to ask the forum owner if he can remove that link from your post because it's really not a sensible idea to identify yourself and your location and thereby leave yourself potentially so open to further targeting. 8. Tip: "What's is like being a retard? / I was just about to ask you the same thing". Don't do that in future - rise to the bait. That's what bullies WANT you to do - so THAT they can feel they've been given the license to bash you. Getting to bash someone (to make them feel less of a victim at their OWN present or past bully's hand) is their whole objective. A better way to deal with it, therefore, is to say nothing and just walk away (and leave the guy to deal with his own misery, frustration and anger at the world in a less stupid and antagonistically nasty way), or answer him as if you believed it was a CONCERNED query - something like (and include the innocent and warm tone as you would were he benign), 'Well, I'm not actually a retard but people do think I must be because of my looks and, yes, it makes my life very difficult, but thank-you for your very kind concern, you're obviously a VERY NICE MAN :-)'. Or - boxing cleverer - illustrate within your choice of answer that not only are you not retarded but - far from it! Example: 'You think getting mistaken for being RETARDED is my biggest problem? No, mate, worse by far is the additional fact of my being BLACK!' (or equally, 'Paralysed and in a wheelchair with a b*ggered left tyre' (whereupon you mimic wheeling yourself round and round in circles...'See what I mean?!'); Tony Blair's solicitor ('I'm off to hang myself!'); engaged to Russell Brand (ditto); legally contracted to complete another season of BayWatch, meaning having had to turn down a much better opportunity of appearing as Mr Darcy opposite [insert fit female star's name] in a new Hollywood-blockbuster re-working of Pride & Prejudice....). Nuff said, right? ;-) It's called, 'p*ssing on their firework'. I reiterate: Ironically, most of these people are the SAME as you (disadvantaged and victimised too hard and/or for too long). But they wish to prove to themselves they're NOT by 'separating' themselves from you. You don't pick on your own kind, do you. So by doing just that, that 'means' they're different (yes, very thick thinking). Ironically, their very action as intended to strongly disassociate themselves from you is the said same action that so clearly, revealingly demonstrates the opposite. Did you ever see that little wheelchair-bound lad/comedian Jack in Britain's Got Talent? Isn't he clever, eh? He's practised knowing EXACTLY how to disarm any predators - and before they've even *thought* to swoop! Think of all the nasty 'smart' comments you've ever received or could ever conceive of receiving and formulate and practise in the mirror a perfect comedy retort or set of retorts for each. If it makes YOU giggle or gaffaw then you know you're onto a winner. (PS: where's your dad these days?) Walking away, for now, however, is your best tack. Having a smart enough set of retorts/tickling sticks with which to wrong-foot or tie the person's tongue and brain in knots is for once you've gained greater experience and confidence, socially. 9. 'X-rated dwarf'? :-D (- but where does the 'x-rating' come into it?) WE'VE FOUND YOUR STREET CHARACTER! Picture it...You in a dwarf costume replete with tinkling bell on your hat, gurning away for the tourists and their cameras. What do you think? And how many specific gurns can you do - have you got a repertoire or could you practise some new ones in the mirror? What about any of your body parts, can you do any body or hand contortions? 10. Why does too much time on your hands 'scare you' when you're so multi-talented and could keep yourself occupied enjoyably for many more hours per time than 99.9% of the population? 11. "they tend to be a little too New Testament-orientated" - HIGH FIVE! :-) " if God COULD keep disabled people from being born, first of all he wouldn't have a wad in Leviticus telling people to keep them away from him and secondly Jesus wouldn't have anyone to perform miracles on!" - High Five again for the latter, and re the former, you forgot again that Leviticus was written by HUMAN hand, not God's. Jesus the man was a campaigner for the downtrodden, life-coach (recalibrating whole communities at a time) as well as (re him 'healing' the disabled) prescriptive therapeutic counsellor rolled into one. PS: Oh, and Aspergic. I mean - come ONNNN, people. You can't get more obsessive/dogged/tenacious than *that*, right!? 12. I'll try to teach you all the many tricks about how to make friends when we get to that point. For now, however, regarding how to take part in forums: BE MY GUEST! :-) If you fancy trying your hand at advising or supporting anyone on any thread here then - just go for it! You don't have to KNOW anything, specifically, pertaining to their particular problem. You could simply be an empathiser-cheerleader, the type that 'interviews' them about all the ins-and-out and thereby encourages them to get things off their chest (as in, 'a problem shared is a problem halved'). You do have to focus on them and their problem, though, and describe something relevant from your own experiences only if it in some way helps THEM. If not, if you're just doing it to reassure them that they're not the only one with life difficulties, ensure after briefly relating your own woe (they can always ask you for more details) you immediately switch back to talking about them again. Either help yourself or have a look at all the threads and tell me which one you'd like to engage with if you want me to keep an eye on you and be ready to step in if you need me to. Chris, if you could do that - help - I would seriously be *very* appreciative because - too many customers, not enough chefs, meaning, a lot of the time the customers end up having to 'wear two hats', or else you get the situation where new OPs (Original Posters) and their threads start to bank up, *particularly* on a Saturday. Here's betting you're going to be great at it, though. :-) Alternatively or additionally, do you think there might be a chance - if you were to start another, extra thread about it - that one of our visitors might know something about mixing and could try to describe in words whatever it is you need to know or give you written instructions? Worth a try? [wiggles space where eyebrows used to sit before they fell off during the last over-wiggling session] PS: U.K. Or "YUK" as I call it (- crappy weather + people's attitudes and values becoming more and more skewed...mainly the weather, though). Not strictly English, however, and in the planning & preparation stages of emigrating to Spain. I'm going home, basically. :-) They have the interweb, though, same as us. PPS: Whenever I'm joking I'll either say so or post a grinning emoticon. Likewise for if I'm being serious but saying what I'm saying in a comical manner just to de-fuse its upsetting element. PPPS: I showed Mr Soulmate that footage of you and he said (he's French), 'Tsk - WHAD? Wha's so wrrrong wiz 'is fess? Ma friend in France, ee look *far* worse zan zat' [it's true, actually]. I said, it's not about his face, is it. Never is. It's always just an-, at which point he cut in with 'EXCOOSSE, oui!'. He was also quite taken aback by all your incredible talents and abilities. PPPPS: Trust me, nobody around here thinks you're dumb. PFFFF! If anything, you're "TOO" intelligent, "TOO" talented, "TOO" interesting and fascinating, "too" EVERYTHING. Sh*t, I mean - if you were good-looking as well?! That wouldn't be fair, now, would it. (;-)) Maybe that's part of the problem as much as the pending solution(s) - that all these silly people can smell you're a co-victim, but one without a tendency to resort immediately to being physically aggressive, thereby unable to defend yourself or defend yourself in-time, thus perfect as a cat to kick, but having far (far-FAR) more going for you than them (as evokes jealousy)? Question: Have you never thought about judo/karate/self-defense classes? Trust me, they're fun with a capital F! PPPPP(er...)S: Cool scar! Don't like how you got given it (OBVIOUSLY!!) but - very impressive and intriguing scar nonetheless. Beats any of mine hands-down, I tell ya! You could use that to incredible advantage at some point. :-) But, again - one step at a time...

Dear Soulmate. Partial answer for the moment - I'll be back - I love writing music, I'm just not too hot at mixing it and they charge so darned MUCH for lessons - College course is seven thousand pounds, individual courses are £40 an HOUR around here! There ARE free courses for disabled/autistic people but they're all people sitting around twanging ukuleles and banging things and being told how clever they are. I joined one to ask the teachers if they could teach me music mixing and got looked at like I'd asked a tourist scientist at a museum how to make a nuclear power station! Loadsa other free courses around - if you're 25 or under. What happens at 26-your brain falls out your ear? I finally got a couple of people to SAY they'd help me recently, but they never answer my E_mails and when I phone them they get cross and say they're helping me out of the kindness of their hearts and they're Very Busy People. So I refrain from mentioning they haven't actually GIVEN me any help yet, bar answering one mixing question. It was a very good and helpful answer but thus far it's been the only one I've had! As far as the Bible goes, I love it - but not in the way the priests want me to. They want me to only really read one narrow bit of it, the New Testament Jesus Story. Which I DO believe. Now I'm not one of these people who can quote chapter and verse all the way through the Bible, wish I was - but I think that, all the way through, Old Testament to Revelations, we're watching a God growing up himself! Hokay, so the next sentence is just an overall view and probably has more holes than a machine-gunned sieve but I see it like this. Old Testament. He's in his Creative Phase. He's eagerly making galaxies, planets, (My Father's House has many mansions...) life, he's enjoying himself like a kid making worlds out of plasticine for the first time. He's experimenting, that's why He starts off with dinosaurs - fairly primitive life forms just to see if He could do it - then He gets confident, rubs 'em out and starts again. (In passing - if you read the sequence of creatures being made in the Bible, it fits in totally with Darwin and modern thinking.) Then he creates Eden. Now for sure that existed - I think it was Gaia/Gondwanaland. The supercontinent you get when you fit all the continents together like a jigsaw puzzle. Don't forget Genesis was the telling of How It Was as a story, a retelling of what happened so ordinary people reading it could understand, more than a literal statement of fact. It's how you'd explain something incredibly complex to a child. But having said that - at what age are you at your most creative, making things from clay and paper, constantly drawing, constantly finding out what things are and what they do? When you're a child, no? Then when He'd gotten confident about making things, He wanted to make sure they were nurtured which, of course, is where the Adam and Eve story comes in (again, that smacks to me very much of another, far more complicated story being simplified down so all could get the gist of it. I'm pretty sure it happened - just the Bible is often Truths retold as Tales.) And that's where God, not for the first time, shows his Very Human - as we're made in His image - Trait for Schneakiness. The Tree of Good and Evil. It always puzzled me why he left it behind there when he knew the Devil had fallen to Earth - then I suddenly saw it and it's a very clever reason indeed. The Devil tempted Eve and Adam (through Eve) to eat it. So they got to know enough to survive on the new planet when they were following the 'Go Forth and Multiply' command (when the continents had separated out, this simplified retelling spans millennia don't forget.) They'd know they'd disobeyed their Creator, so they'd be wanting to apologise - thus keeping them true to His laws when they were starting things up. They'd also know from first-hand experience the Devil was evil and schneaky and not to be trusted, which would be another incentive for them to stick to God's will and not be taken in by the Adversary. So God made sure they'd keep true to Him, keep away from the Devil, all without infringing their Freedom of Will. AND he made sure they had all the knowledge they needed to keep alive until there were enough people to keep the species going. And, as it was the Tree of All Knowledge, enough knowledge to keep everything else alive until it could keep going on its own. But that huge chunk isn't mentioned in the Bible, which is what convinces me it's a massively bigger feat retold as (almost) a fairytale. I'd love to know the full story, undumbed-down, but I guess I won't either. (The Angel with the Burning Sword? Well - He didn't want them to just stay in the safe womb bit forever, so he had to stop them from just cowering there.) Incidentally, apropos of nothing except it's a little fun fact, and I'm sorry in advance if you know it already - did you know Shakespeare helped translate the Bible? I can prove it - he left his name behind in it. He was 49 when he helped out. Go to Psalm 49. Count 49 words down from the top and you get Shake. Count 49 words up from the bottom and you get Spear. Then ask yourself if that's an incredible coincidence..... You wrote me a poem so I thought I'd write you one, except mine aren't very good so I call them 'pomes', as they're not good enough to be 'poems'! Should I clad thee in silken midnight In deepest shades of mystery All promise lost, no way for my sight To see what futures might yet be. But one by one, the stars are rising One by one, they form a chain From my small world, to your horizon That I might think of you again. Should I clad thee in new-dawned glory Would your laughter help me find A path to sun's realms yet before me A way to leave sadness behind. To turn my fog of indecision Into drops of diamond dew My harmony of thoughts arisen From times remembered, watching you. Leafshadow dapples born of sunlight Glissando birdsong's crystal calling Veiled through clouds, their melted starlight Crisps the ground with fresh-minted morning. Through shadowed leaves, a golden silhouette Dances in mirage, mocks my eyes Embroidered in dew-diamonds and lightsilk lace Woven by charcoal boughs, from amber skies. I walk ghostfoot beside the brook In its depths, I hear your music playing My heart makes me stop, and sit, and look Slowly I understand all the tunes are saying. I throw my head back and laugh As each helps cut my spirit free From another rusting epitaph Of maudlin, binding threnody. How can I fear the future's face When your tunes have left my scarred mind healed? Given me the courage to embrace All that Time must yet reveal. They tell me tales of gentle courage. They beckon me with siren calling. To my future, they help build the bridge On which I walk strong, with no fear of falling. OK, so it's not good. Hope you like it anyway! Chris.

Last addendum to above - I tried again to spend time with other people last night - and the same thing happened - got barred, near as darn it, for doing so. I thought I was having a nice chat. They were trying to get rid of me so they could spend time amongst themselves without me spoiling things for them. I flat didn't realise that until a bouncer came over and Smiled Gently Down at me. He didn't bounce me - quite. But he ambled over to the door with me and I don't think I'll be going back there for awhile either!They all seemed mightily relieved I was going, I looked back to see. I still couldn't tell you precisely what I did wrong, same as all the other times, because I don't know. I could GUESS but that's all it wuld be and it would probably be as accurate as a roulette player's guess on the next number. That's about 12 or more places and counting. Do you really, in all honesty, think that this people thing's ever going to happen for me or should I stop chasing chimera and accept enforced Trappist-hood? Chris.

@soulmate Yes, Chris is an inspiration. And very brave!!! I'll like to add, I don't own a credit card. I'm living day to day, trusting the universe to provide all that I need. I work as hard as can be so that I don't have to beg, borrow or rob. I'm learning to drop all desires so that I'll have less and less problems. I do have one at hand though. It's been with me since Adam's day. An over active mind! @Chris Make peace, be kind, be gentle. To yourself. You're good at many things and passionate about it. The way you write and express about them, boy, you're really good! With people and situations, sometimes we stay, sometimes we dust our feet and move on. If "those people" think you're not for them, then "they" are not for you. Move on and do your own thing. I'm sure you do know relationships, of all levels, bring forth friction - confusion, disappointment and heart break etc. While you haven't found your clique, enjoy your time and make peace, make friend with yourself. You don't have to stop seeking, but do so with peace within you. I go the the park very often, all by myself. I enjoy my own company. So can you. Love and serenity.

@Seen-Thru and Soulmate. I'd love to work as hard as I can too, but in the last 20 years I've never found anyone willing to give me a job voluntary or otherwise. That's the same around here - I feel so guilty being 'lazy', but it's kinda forced on me. I've applied all over the place and it's 'You must have two references...' 'You must have at least 2 years experience of This Exact Software...' or the eternal 'We'll Let You Know, Dear!' And you're right I do hate myself for bringing out the feelings in others I do, of making them feel safer if I'm not there, of constant rejection, of eternal enmity. I don't set out to bring out those feelings but they're always there around me and I feel constantly like I shouldn't be on this world at all if those are the only feelings I can evoke in others. Example? You sit in a park and people pass by you. I sit in a park and get parents coming up to me, asking if I'm looking at their kids on the swings! (That was a few days ago in London, I was sitting in a small park near a children's play area. Yes I was watching the children enjoying themselves, but not for any of the reasons the parents were thinking!) I moved away after that accusation with the father yelling 'Don't come back, effin' pervert!' at me. That evening I sat on a bench in Victoria, just taking London in before getting the coach, and a very well-meaning lady gave me half a loaf of cheesy bread and a chocolate croissant! I'm short and fat and wasn't even hungry, but it's another example of me evoking reactions in people. This was a nicer reaction, but again, why me? There were others on other benches and she hadn't approached any of them, why me? There's gotta be a way out of this but I can't think of it. That's why I'm here. I've been trying to find a way out of this for about 30 years now and still can't. And I hate that fact too! Right now, I've got Mr. Idiot downstairs banging away on the ceiling because I've been writing music on my computer and he hates me doing that. It's not particularly loud, nobody else complains, but HE does. To the council. To anyone who'll listen. So I'm going out for half an hour to give him a chance to cool down - he tends to turn green and gain excess musculature at these times! He's been kicking my door in at intervals ever since I've been here - I think he's been warned about the door so he just kicks me in instead! Question for Seen-Thru. When you're at work, I presume you talk to your colleagues on whatever-the-job-is (you don't have to tell me, doesn't matter for this question) and in break times. Technically - how do you know when they want you to talk to them and when they'd rather be on their own? How do you know when to stay away and when to go over, and when going over might evoke extreme reactions (like being bounced/barred from the group?) Please, TECHNICALLY how do you know, I want to know what to look for in people's faces so I know if it's safe to approach them or not. Yours hopefully Chris.

Dear Chris The father at the park, he's ignorant, he has not gone through what you've been through, and he has no empathy. If he can "wear your shoes" he'll know better than to yell at you. Anyway, with these people, we dust our feet and move on. "They know not what they're doing." Now :-) the very well meaning lady... She shared her food with you. I hope you accepted her gentle kindness. Why did she approach you instead of others, you asked. Let's turn the table around. If you are the lady, walking along...seeing people sitting on benches.. You have some food, (let's say) more than you need, walking along, you're thinking who can I share my food with, and then you caught "your" eyes, so you walked toward "you" and offered... Ok, so you're the lady, now please tell me, why do you choose "you" to share food with? Chris, be fair to yourself. Please put your ego away before you answer. I don't know what's your answer, but now, my turn :-) She has loving kindness. Maybe she's born with this beautiful spirit in her. Maybe she has a relative who has a similar condition, so she understands. Who knows, the reason is not important, the important point is that here is someone, nice and kind to you. She didn't see you as short, fat and not hungry, she just wanted to be nice, to you. When you're yelled at, why me? When some nice lady offered niceties, why me? Let's do this slow and gentle. When the father yelled at you, why did he? He's ignorant of (the meaning of) life. When the lady offered to share her food with you, why did she? She's nice, she has loving kindness. Chris dear, do you see that when you change and look at the two situations in another perspective, (It becomes) it's not about you. It's about them. He's ignorant, she's nice. Nothing else. ............. Now to answer your questions... I love to doodle. On the job, we talk shop. Work related exchanges. During break, if we happen to sit around (together in a group) I listen, let them do the talking. Funny fact - we human love to talk. So I listen most of the time. Some confide, some brag, some complain, some criticize, some gossip.... They kind of know I'm non judgemental, so, some tell me their darkest secrets Lol So that's when we happened to sit in a group. Sometimes, I'd choose to step out a minute or two before everyone, I'd go to a corner and doodle. So that's when they know I wish to be left alone. I'm not sure if this (the above) is helpful. There's another scenario. Im not sure if it's useful for you. I go to the park often. I walk a lot but I also sit on the bench a lot. When I'm on the move (walking) I look at nature, trees, trunks, leaves, branches, flowers, grass.... When I'm sitting, I doodle. In a way I mind my own business. Another funny fact - we human are curious. People who walked pass... will do one of these: Look and continue their way Stay and watch for a while Stay, watch, and comment (I respond by smiling) Stay, watch and ask questions (I answer politely and sincerely) For me, I feel it's better (and safer) for others to approach me first. Love and peace within.

Chris, your poem is not just good, it's *very* good, but, for now, I want to direct your attention to what went wrong at the park and why, to show you that you DID do something- not 'wrong' but ....very inconsiderate and insensitive. Understand: yes, you get targeted and picked-on. But that doesn't make you immune to however often making mistakes on your part. So I'm going to see if I can put you in those parents (father in particular's) shoes so that you can see AND FEEL his point of view and then perhaps fully comprehend WHY he reacted as extremely and aggressively as he did in terms of fatherly protectiveness towards his all-too-precious mini-mes - by coming out with just one sentance to see if it's enough to trigger you to 'get it': What paedophiles do. (Renewed thoughts, please?)

Hey Chris How are you doing? I hope you are feeling very cool, calm and collected <3 I have a question for you. You are making music (and selling them) so I was wondering, do you post them on YouTube? I'm curious what genre of music are you into... Hope I'm not asking for too much :-) Love and peace within. ---------------- Tapping on your window.... Hello soulmate :-)

Hello Seen-Thru! Lovely weather we're having, isn't it? LOL Cucumber sandwich...? Tea top-up? (;-) He's thinking. He's a very deep thinker,...methinks...(, deeply).)

LOL... Love you both. Thanks for the sandwich, mate. Yum!

Dear Soulmate. Sorry, didn't notice you'd replied, do forgive me. Well, I WRITE New Age music - but for about the last 8 years I've been trying to find someone, join a course, learn SOMEHOW, how to mix the stuff better. If you're going to say 'YouTube videos', imagine you can't drive (I don't know if you can or not, but IMAGINE you can't!) and you're trying to learn by watching a TV program about driving. (Or wondering why, despite watching every program Jamie Oliver's made, you're still not a Cordon Bleu chef!) They've got a great course just near me - for seven thousand quid. They've got teachers near me - who come round, tell me 'You gotta have Package X, I can't teach you on anything else...' which is like saying you can't learn to bang a nail in because you've got the wrong make of hammer! So you buy the software, can't make the software work, say to yourself 'Oh, they'll help me set it up...' Wrong. They only teach you AFTER it's been set up properly. They're 'Far too busy to help you set it up, sorry!' I've been trying to get One. Solitary. Halfway. Decent. Lesson for nearly a frickin' decade. And there's two local groups devoted to making electronic music - I've joined them both in order to learn and every single member is 'far too busy, sorry!' So how the heck are you supposed to learn if nobody will teach you, and then everyone laughs at your efforts because you don't know enough to make them sound better? That's a straight question, if you can think of an answer to THAT, you'll have a friend forever. I've been butting my head against that one for as long as I can remember. I'm happy to put links to my stuff on SoundCloud, but I don't put anything on YouTube because I'm too darned ashamed of how bad it sounds compared to all the others', and nobody will help me make it sound better - heck, there's a duo who spend all their time writing electronic New Age living not half a mile away from me and they've both refused to give me lessons no end of times. They won't even answer perfectly valid questions if I E_mail them. So right now I just write it to keep myself sane - nobody will let me do anything else much anyway. I'm not allowed to work in charity shops because I don't have two referees or the customers 'wouldn't like looking at you' - that one's from a charity show for the Learning Disabled, Worthing - or 'It might be dangerous for you, darling...' Dunno HOW they work that one out but they do. I try to go to disability events but I can't do much when I get there either because I'm a singleton and all the others are there in groups - yes you get to DO the things but it's like being allowed to kick a ball around a field because you can't join either of the impromptu teams because you didn't turn up with either of them and if you hurt yourself, they wouldn't be indemnified. I spend far too much time watching groups from my window and wishing and wishing I could be part of them just once. I write tunes about that, too. So I'll send you some to laugh at because it never sounds Quite Right, or put some up on Soundcloud for EVERYONE to laugh at because it never sounds Quite Right - but they'll assume I MEAN it to sound the way it does and I'm just hopeless - it's up to you. All I ever know is my stuff CAN sound right - because every so often someone takes one of my tracks, fixes it and THEN it sounds right. But they won't tell me what they DID to it, so I never learn! Yours frustratedly Chris.

Dear Chris New Age music, like Yanni's? I don't know much but I do love music. You know, Chris, movie stars and singers do get hate mails, but that doesn't stop them from doing what they're doing. Soulmate wrote "I heard whiffs of Chopin" I bet your music is not as bad as you think. Put them up on Soundcloud and or YouTube, whichever you're comfortable with. Do allow me to be your first fan :-) Courage!

Okay, Chris, here's the situation: You want me to help you relate to, get along better with, and deal with other people. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do that when you're meanwhile repeatedly, despite prompting, failing to keep focus and answer important, pertinent questions posed by me, and now even getting me mixed up (ref the question about musical genres) with Seen-Thru. I do understand. You've said yourself you've been starved of proper human contact and conversation for too long - right? ("right!"). So I've decided the best and most sensible thing to do, all-round, is to let you feed that starved need of yours to the point of get it out of your system, *first*. You clearly do need some play (for a change) before you'll be ready to knuckle down. And I myself am overloaded at this current time, anyway. So the signs have spoken. I'm not, therefore, available to talk to you, as in JUST CHAT, on a daily basis (although will be able to join in here and there). However, Seen-Thru and you seem to have passions and interests in common thus plenty to discuss (plus I'm sure others might like to join in the conversation; it is, after all, quite novel compared to the norm). So I'll leave you two and whomever else to it, just for the time being. A couple of weeks ought to do it, but just say come the time if you'd like longer? :-)

Dear Soulmate. Felt like I'd been kicked in the gut when I read your last post. I thought we were friends and I loved you being there and trying to do what you told me. I've tried to do - not always successfully, which I guess is because I've misunderstood something, all you've told me. I wasn't getting you muddled up with anyone, I was just trying to be inclusive so as not to hurt anyone's feelings, which I've obviously failed in and I'm sorry, the last thing I ever wanted was to hurt your feelings, Soulmate. I've only just noticed what you put above the last post. What did I do wrong at the park? You'll have to tell me flat out, I promise I'm not a paedophile, never have been, but I honestly can't work out what I did wrong, that's why I'm here, to learn. I'm sorry I didn't see the post about the park, I've got an IN_box so full of spam - I'm terrible for visiting different websites, usually science/popular science ones and then getting E_mails from them - that I missed the E_mail notifying me about that post. I wasn't trying to avoid the question. I'm still not. Tell me what I did wrong and I'll learn and not do it again. I wasn't trying to prefer anyone over anybody. I was trying to include both of you and obviously not doing a good job of it, that's something else I have to learn. I do understand it must be difficult - and this is not meant to sound condescending, if what I'm about to say is wrong, tell me that too - for people with general understanding of interpersonal relationships to realise just HOW gauche/bad my understanding is. Yes I know I make mistakes too, obviously ones that are glaring to you - but they're honestly not to me. I've thought and thought and the only thing I can come up with is 'if there's a child anywhere in vision and you see it, immediately look away'. Is that it? Do you mean that if I'm out anywhere and I hear/glimpse a child, because it's me, I have to either make a detour, look in a shop window until it's passed or look Very Pointedly at something high overhead to prove I'm in no way looking at the child? I'm so sorry you thought I was getting you and Seen-Thru confused. I honestly wasn't, I've been working on revamping pieces of music - can only do one a day, that's how long it takes I'm afraid, and of course there's the rest of Life to fit in like doing clothes-washing, tidying (gotta finish that off this morning!) shopping, finding more voluntary things to (hopefully NOT - can always dream!) be turned down for. Please don't give up on me. If you're cross because I spoke to Seen-Thru, fair enough, I won't do the music any more. I was just repolishing old tracks and it took longer than I thought, as I said above. I wasn't not answering you, just missed the E_mail about the post. And again as said above, you'll have to tell me what I did wrong in the park. You said we'd reach a point where you'd explain how to do friendships and stuff and I was really looking forwards to that. If I promise to check back here daily to see if you've posted anything regardless of whether I've noticed an E_mail, and I promise not to talk to Seen-Thru as it's 'either-or' and as usual I hadn't realised that, please will you carry on giving me tips? It's just I need telling straight because I never can, as in absolutely never, work out what I do wrong, that's why I'm here. You tell me what I do wrong and what I should do, and I'll learn and do it with no hurt feelings. I'm sorry I spoke to Seen-Thru, I didn't realise I wasn't supposed to - honest truth - and I promise I won't speak to that person any more. But I do trust you and want to keep on talking to you. I do try for people but everyone boots me out, please don't you do it too. I won't talk to Seen-Thru any more, I just thought all three of us were friends. Another mistake, right? I'll learn. (There's no intentional sarcasm or anything else in this reply, I promise, just a disclaimer incase it looks like there is.) Thanks for liking the poem. I used to write lots of poems, then the Writers Group I briefly belonged to in Hastings kept accusing me of copying them from Some Mysterious Source Online. I didn't know how to DISprove that - the Internet's a big place - then someone found one that read a tiny bit like one of mine and was all over it 'See? I told you he couldn't write anything like that. See the similarities?' Then I put my foot in it big time with the Chairwoman, who gave a lecture on E.M. Forster. Now I love sci-fi - not commercial 'blaster'n'spaceship' movies but the interesting stuff. And E.M. Forster wrote an absolute classic of sci-fi - 'The Machine Stops'. And she didn't know he wrote it and said straight out, during the questions after the talk, that Forster never wrote sci-fi ('The Machine Stops' isn't his ONLY sci-fi story but it's far and away his best by miles). So I had a copy of the novelette in a book of short stories I'd been reading on buses and I went straight up with it and showed it to her because I thought she'd be interested. She gave me a look I can remember but can't work out - if I'd given a talk on an author and someone had shown me a story by him I'd never heard of I'd've been fascinated and thanked that person but that look didn't look like 'Thanks for showing that to me!' - and the following week it was 'Ah, Christopher. Got any new downloads to read to us?' from the guy who was convinced he'd found where I got my poems from and the others laughed, so I admit I gave up and just stopped going. Stopped writing poems too, if nobody was gonna believe I wrote them, what's the point? I know you believe, I just didn't want people on other websites calling me a liar or anything. There was another brief time when I 'did' the Poetry Circuit, before it all became 'slam' poetry and 'performance' poetry which I can't write to save my life, I can only do Chris poetry - when I was writing new stuff for almost every show and the others were just recycling one bunch of poems with the occasional new one in. I stopped doing those shows because I was getting farther and farther out-of-touch with the Benjamin Zephaniah stuff all the others were doing and I didn't feel I belonged there any more either. So OK. As it annoyed you that I spoke to Seen-Thru and offered to put up music for BOTH of you to listen to, I promise I won't speak to Seen-Thru any more or put up the music. Again I'm sorry I missed the post about me thinking about what I did wrong in the park. You'll have to tell me straight what that was, if it's wrong to sit in parks I won't do any more but I do see other people sitting in parks. If it's wrong to sit in parks BECAUSE IT'S ME then tell me that and I'll understand that too. I don't want to lose your friendship and I'm truly sorry I hurt your feelings. I was honestly just trying to do things for both of you, I didn't realise how wrong that was. It won't happen again. I'm gonna sign off by writing you another short poem - it's called 'Nine O-clock News!' Hello.... This is your friendly neighbourhood newscaster Bringing you stories of floods and disasters, Of violence, of murder, Of love and of hate, Of all of the things that make our country great! We go... The news must be truth or it wouldn't be news. But what we don't tell you is these are OUR views. As you listen to us We think you'll find That you think the truth is what we put in your mind! We show... Pictures in papers, on posters, on screens We tell you what they are, we tell you what they mean. You may consider You have free choices What we hear from your lips is the sound of our voices! Please don't give up on me Soulmate. I'll check back here daily, try to follow whatever you tell me, won't speak to Seen-Thru any more (or put up any music, that's fair enough) but you'll have to just tell me straight out what I do wrong because otherwise I'll be guessing forever, you might well infer I'm not guessing right intentionally, but I won't be, I just honestly won't know without being told, I'm that bad. And if there's anything else I've missed that I should have done, rub my nose in it! I'm so sorry I hurt you. It was honestly not intentional. Yours in friendship Chris.

P.S. I found the E_mail, buried well and truly, that would have led me to your park question. And if it's any proof that I wasn't ignoring you, I've also found another couple of E_mails that MIGHT have led to opportunities for me if only I'd seen them before! I flat missed those, too! I might put my foot in it all the time, but it is never intentional or done with any intent of malice. I just want to be friends with people but everyone always kicks me out. Please don't. Chris.

Dear Chris and Soulmate, I'm on this site to encourage, not to cause confusion. I hope this misunderstanding clears up eventually. Always a friend, to all. Yours sincerely Seen-thru

Dear Soulmate. What paedophiles do is shove themselves up kids. I never had any thoughts, longings or feelings about wanting to do anything like that, if for no other reason than I've had it done to me and know what it feels like, also the thought of doing it to anyone, kid or adult, is very distasteful to me, that's one of the main reasons I've not had adult relationships in that way (aside from the fact I'm so ruddy ugly few girls would look at me anyway!) I can't believe women would enjoy the sensation either, I'm pretty sure they just 'go along with it' because men 'expect it of them', am I right? Yours respectfully Chris.

"Tsk!" For goodness' sake, you two, it wasn't meant to be a bloody punishment. Jeeez.... So will you cease with this 'didn't mean to hurt your feelings/cause confusion' and 'kick in the guts', basically 'trying-to-play-on-his/her-emotions' nonsense. There aren't any 'feelings' nor were any attached to this matter to begin with, and, no, 'friendship' is not something I personally offer on here - to you or Seen-Thru or anyone - nor ever have, despite others might. Sorry, but that's how it is. Because I'm MODERATOR first, THEN poster, I've got too many things to do in too little time. You, Chris, get given work in a friendLY (and hopefully/usually fun) manner but aren't supposed to come out of this exercise as this moderator's new-found friend (this is a JOB for me, regardless that it's voluntary and unpaid, and not even my ONLY job ...- cuh, *I* wish!). I simply said, Chris, that I'd realised you need time interacting/socialising on this thread/forum as a whole, *first*, and it's a very sensible and intelligent suggestion on my part because it's going to be excellent limbering-up practise for what's to come, ANYWAY. Put it this way, I can teach someone to swim by shoving them into the deep end of a swimming pool and THEN shouting instructions on how to do Doggy Paddle motions with their arms and legs as they flail around in a blind panic, having to think 'on their feet', OR I can let them spend time getting used to the water and trying out different strokes in the shallow end before THEN moving them up to the deep end to put what they've learned naturally into effect (be that Breast-Stroke or Crawl or Back-Stroke, whichever stroke they've shown they naturally take to). I choose the latter because logic whilst having had a chance to observe you dictates without a shadow of a doubt that you NEED [1] time to get used to the water and moving your arms and legs around in synchronised fashion first and [2] some bloody FUN for a change. YES, I'll still pop in wherever possible to chat and provide you with new mental stimulation or add to the chat that's already underway - either or; I just can't do that every single day (never HAVE been capable of it). Plus it's only for a couple of weeks anyway. So WHERE'S THE FIRE, WHERE'S THE NEED FOR SCREECHY VIOLINS (either of you)? I never SAID you'd done anything wrong (either of you). Did I? Show me where. I think I said the opposite, actually. Stop yer nonsense and get on with having FUN, you daft pair ;-p. In case you didn't know or hadn't ever noticed, Play is just a version of work, anyway (exploration and experimentation...practise first, rather than theory first or the two done simultaneously). Just ask any pre-school toddler or their mum. Think of it as morning Playtime/Recess before school/registration starts...not an emotional decision, just a sensible METHOD I've decided on based on the evidence right under my nose - OKAY? ********** Now to the paedophilia issue: I *know* you're not a paedophile, Chris. My point was - but that father didn't. Because, without having realised, you did the same sort of thing that parents have been taught paedophiles tend to do when gearing up to choose a victim to prime or run off with the minute attention is diverted. Like professional burglars, they spend days/weeks (even months) 'casing the joint' before they pounce. But what they *don't* tend to do is sit watching from the nearest bench with a sign hung around their neck saying, 'I'm a Paedophile - lock up yer sons and daughters or RUN!'. So how on earth was HE to know what you were or weren't??? YES, that minority through their casing/bracing habits have spoiled what used to be a fun pasttime (Little People-watching) for many, many people - lonely people, contemplative people, artists with pen and sketchpad, people who can't and won't ever get to have their own kids, people who've lost kids, little old ladies and gents, ...basically anyone who just adores kids for how cute and interesting to watch they are...the list is endless). But isn't that ALWAYS the way in this life - 'one' spoiling it for the rest of us? YES, it's sad and frustrating and all of that (and no doubt just adds to the fear and hatred of paedophiles). But that doesn't make it not true. So that's what's on your reality plate, meaning, what you have to deal with or work around, not some ideal. So UNTIL the authorities find a way to *prevent* paedophilia per se or *pre-block* every avenue of theirs for carrying out their nasty deeds, the rest of us get deprived of an enjoyable strain of People-Watching. Don't you watch the telly or read the papers, Chris? You can bet that father does. TERRIFYING, it is! So how was he supposed to know you were one of the GOOD (kid-watching) guys? Do you yourself sport a notice around your neck saying, 'Not a paedophile, just like innocently watching kids'? You don't, do you. But you WERE doing something they habitually do so, where others might be more sensitive in terms of newly REFRAINING from watching strangers' kids - or refraining from being seen to do so as a lone individual (without a dog) - YOU do the maths if you're that father (and crap at maths). You don't have a sign. All he has to go on is BEHAVIOUR. So he had a choice: [a] do nothing and risk the ongoing presence of someone just waiting to strike (who might well one day succeed); [b] inform the Police to let them handle it (or fail to, considering sitting in a park near to a playground hasn't become a crime); or [c] nip it/the "probably-a-paedophile" situation in the bud. He ("eenie-meenie-minie-mo") chose C because he felt he'd rather upset a stranger fleetingly/temporarily than lose his kid(s) and those kids find themselves at the hands of a 'monster'. So would you in that circumstance - choose the lesser of two evils (think cute puppy and puppy-snatchers). It's called better safe than sorry, particularly as parents have also had drummed into them the fact that where child protection is concerned, one is not supposed to take chances and it's OKAY to over-react (because the victims, if innocent, are supposed to understand and let them off). So that's where you were lacking sensitivity and awareness ("street cred" and an attempt to pacify other (paranoid) members of your community where such power is in your hands) about how you and your actions can come across as in the presence of typically skittish parents who just aren't prepared to take *any* chances by giving *anyone* doing "what paedophiles do" the benefit of the doubt. Understand? IT WASN'T ANYTHING PERSONAL AND HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR ACTUAL APPEARANCE, just what you were doing. So either you're going to have to find another park, one where sitting watching anything is common practise thus acceptable/tolerated or you're going to have to cease kid-observing altogether. What about the Peter Pan Playground at Worthing? That would be perfect, surely, given that the playground is enclosed/cordoned off and affords views of the sea and beach-walkers at the same time, meaning, you can be seen 'watching' stuff other than/as well as the kids at play?

Short version: I'm not 'kicking you out', Chris, I'm kicking you *IN* (DEEPER). Okay? So again - carry on having fun conversations for a few more weeks. Anyway, you don't know, you MIGHT attract to your thread someone who knows how to do that "mixing thingy", but you wouldn't if anyone reading could see we were already, just you and me, in the middle of a How To CLASS. This way you can make some forum friends and automatically, though that, make serious headway before class starts. Simples! :-) (Feeling silly yet? ;-) Good if you are - it's a good lesson not to automatically tar everyone with the same brush just because you're used to solely the one brush-OH, LOOKIE - JUST LIKE THAT FATHER! (ta-daaa!))

YEAH!!! Soulmate has cleared the air! Chris, can you see clearly now??? Soulmate, you the best!!! Hugs.

Dear Soulmate. I don't 'habitually' watch kids. I've got one long-distance acquaintance who I used to know when I was in a mental institution in Hastings, yes it's a lady but she's pretty mentally handicapped - WHY they class mental handicap and mentally ill under the same banner I know not - and her father's just got himself a new wife. It was her birthday, she invited me to her party but her step-mum had other ideas and set things up so I couldn't possibly get there in time. But I'd booked the coach ticket by then and was in London so I was just using the disability bus pass to wander around the place. I'd thought of going to a day centre but many negative memories of such places dissuaded me! So I ended up at a terminus stop beside this park. And I was just wondering what playing together felt like - when I was a kid, I got other kids screaming and running off as this 'monster' approached them. The parents thought I was bullying them or something and used to yell at me/my father for letting me anywhere near their progeny. They were usually Dad's acquaintances - 'dahn the pub' type friends - and he'd take their side and yell and ask what I'd been doing to them. I promise you I hadn't been doing ANYTHING to them, just trying to join in with them. So after a few of those happenings, I stopped trying to join in with them. Dad used to choose people with kids for me to join in with - and as if he was a guided missile he'd choose the parents of every bully I spent all day avoiding to bring their offspring round. I'd spend afternoons in the garden, fond parents watching, surrounded by all the nightmares everyone spent their lives escaping in the school playground. Those kids were past masters at ripping you to shreds without any bruises showing, it always looked like an accident, sometimes it looked like YOU were doing stuff to THEM but you always came off worst. Somehow, I always seemed to end up as the one being told off while they were all wearing angelic smiles and being invited back round to tea next Saturday. And of course the teachers happily encouraged me to 'play with your little friends' because they knew they'd been round to my house so they assumed we were bestest mates. That's why I spent my childhood avoiding school as much as possible. School's a nightmare. It's a nightmare because most adults don't REMEMBER what a nightmare it was, so they've got the same rose-coloured lie in their heads 'Ahh... Cute kiddies playing together!' If I had a kid, I'd teach him and get him through exams, no way would I want to put him through what I went through, I remember every hellish second of it and I'm shaking as I'm writing this. It's BECAUSE I avoided school I got the knowledge, through libraries, through the British library where a man let me read many rare and precious books in return for me letting him 'do things' to me, that got me past my exams totally outside of the school system. If I'd stayed IN school, I wouldn't have got any exams at all, believe. So when I saw kids actually playing together PROPERLY, I thought it might be a microcosm of 'playing together' - socially interacting - as adults and if I saw how they did it right, I might be able to learn from it. If you think wearing a sign saying I'm not a paedophile is a good idea for when I'm in a park, that it would save problems/arguments, I'll get a T_shirt printed up, quite literally if you like the idea, and wear it. That would prevent problems, you're right. (There's no sarcasm in this whole reply, believe!) I thought you were cross because I was talking to someone else, not just you. I thought you thought that meant I didn't trust you or what you were telling me. I do trust you. I was just trying to be inclusive. Like I said I thought we were friends, this is what happens to me, I think I'm friends with someone, trust them, talk to them and it's 'NOO!! I'm not friends with that monster. Keep it AWAY FROM ME!!' And there I am, banned again. Now it's happening here, exactly like it happens in real life with me, you can see exactly what's going on now because you're doing it yourself (or seem to be!) And that's not a criticism/accusation, just a statement of fact. It's like being a spider at an arachnophobia meeting - 'WAAH - SPIDA... YOU HAVE HIM... NO.... YOU HAVE HIM...!!' I'm sorry I was the spider to you two. I honestly didn't mean to be. I was cruising forwards on a boundless wave of energy, writing loads of stuff, convinced I'd found two people to show it to and hey presto, as though by magic, I've done it again, put my foot in it up to my armpits and two people suddenly don't wanna talk to me any more and as per always I don't REALLY understand why. All I understand is that I've done here what I do everywhere else but I don't know what I've done nor how I've done it nor what to do about it. But one thing's for sure - it's sure put the kybosh on the creativity stream! (And at least you've seen the process in action now.) I'm going out for a bus ride I think. While I'm out I'm going to watch PEOPLE, NOT KIDS! to see if I can find any clues as to how they get on with eachother and how I manage to blow it every time. I promise you that if the people HAVE kids with them I will fully look the other way. Life's really a desert filled with mirages, isn't it. The moment you think you've found an oasis, it vanishes and you're just left with sand again. Yours, Chris.

By the way - the playground in the park I ended up at was behind a metal fence, I was outside of the fence sitting on a bench on the edge of the park and the road. There was a man on the bench next to mine, a couple of older guys on another bench a little ways away and a guy with a dog - small terrier of some kind - sitting on the grass a lot closer than was I to the fence behind which the children were playing. And various others wandering through/about the park - really just a big lawn with a kids' play area in the middle. I didn't go into the play area, just sat on the bench by the edge of the road outside it. Yours respectfully Chris.

Dearest Chris I am always a friend. Whether you wish or do not wish to be my friend, I will still be one. Please read both my posts dated 5 sept to feel encouraged. I'm sincere about hoping to listen to your music. Now that Soulmate has cleared the air, I hope you'll continue to work on the music for Soundcloud, of course, after your daily chores. Take your time, enjoy the process :-) I understand you been through a lot in life. I understand it is painful. Can you try to work on letting go of the past? Don't dwell on it. Replace the unhappy thoughts with making music, and doing other stuff...? "I'm sorry I was the spider to you two." If man is called spider, I am a spider too. Please remember... 1) I'm not upset, not even the slightest:-) 2) if you do not wish to reply, I won't take any offense :-) 3) I'll be here, I'm not a mirage :-) 4) Soulmate and I, we're both sincere:-) Sincerely Seen-thru aka spider:-)

Dear either-or-both-of-you-two, whichever will get me yelled at least! I don't know what's going on, I'm just confused dot com. I've got Soulmate flouncing off in a huff the moment I speak to Seen-thru. I've got Seen-thru flouncing off in a huff the moment I try to stop Soulmate flouncing off in a huff. Then I get Soulmate behaving exactly like all the people who get me bounced from places behave 'NOO.... I'M NOT THIS GUY'S FRIEND.... IT'S ALL A MISTAKE.... GET HIM AWA-A-A-A-Y FROM ME!!' I've had that one SO often I know what happens about ten seconds after it - you get your collar grabbed by Hulk Hogan's uglier brother and you're once more in a fight royal. Usually you lose, but the IDEA is to give the bouncer something to remember you by. And occasionally you win. Now I've got you BOTH saying you want to be friends. All I can do here is go on precedence. Last time I was in this situation I spoke to you and Soulmate tossed her toys out the pram. So I spoke to Soulmate and you vanished. So I'm kinda in a triangular Mexican standoff here - I don't dare speak to one without the other one losing it and when I tried to include both of you Soulmate told me I was getting confused, by which I now think she meant 'You're only supposed to be talking to me, so why are you saying you'll put up music for this other one?' So quite honestly, I've got absolutely zero idea what to do next that's not gonna offend ONE of the pair of you! You two discuss the situation together, come to some kind of arrangement that's not gonna mean I get bollocked, yelled at or run away from, tell me what the arrangement is and I'll go along with it as long as I know you two are ALSO going along with it. How's that sound? Yours respectfully Chris.

Hello Chris :-) I mentioned "I hope this misunderstanding clears up eventually." Almost immediately, Soulmate posted and explained quite clearly all is good. There are sincere people on this earth, at least two now in your life, no, at least three (the well meaning ong lady you mentioned in your earlier post) and I am quite sure you have met more. "Flouncing off in a huff.." Why would anyone be flouncing off yet tell you "always a friend"? "So I spoke with soulmate and you vanished." Soulmate and I have been here all along :-) Look at the dates of the posts. "Tell me what the arrangement is and I'll go along with it.." There's nothing to arrange. We flow along... Like now, I'm trying explain, hopefully you are not confused anymore so that we can move forward. Do you think you can let go of this misunderstanding and move on? All you have to do is keep moving forward... I'll walk the talk... @Chris, you mentioned you're into New Age music, the only new age I know of is Yanni's and I enjoy it. I also enjoy songs by Led Zeppelin, Bad Compny, Lobo, Alicia Keys, Sam smith etc @Soulmate, in your earlier post, you shared a song, "Senses working overtime." It's a very nice song, thank you. I've been watching it on YouTube and singing along with it :-) Thanks for the link and your thoughtfulness (lyrics). Clarity and serenity :-)

Dear Soulmate and Seen-Thru. I've got to ask this question going back to when I started this thread because I've got a couple of meetings with people/groups coming up and I'm frankly terrified of both of them, I'm hoping to you they'll be trivial, easily-explainable situations, so here goes.... I can type far better than I can verbalise, I don't know if it's to do with the Cerebral Palsy or Asperger's, but that seems to be the truth of it. I get tied in knots with incredible ease in real-life, face-to-face situations that most people would handle as daily norms. And here's a couple I've got coming up this week that I'm hoping you can 'brief' me on so I don't get the usual reactions from the others.... I'm a member of two Brighton synth. groups. I joined them hoping I could get mixing tips/better-synth-using tips from them - but they BOTH seem to be groups where people go to show off the latest, incredibly expensive (on my budget!) interfaces/toys/touch screens they've got, they make up techno music as they go along (it's the dance world's equivalent of jazz, doing that, but you need top equipment to do it) and when I told them I just used a computer and a mouse, when I first joined, they burst out laughing, saw I was serious and never spoke to me since. I'm THERE, but I'm invisible. I ask to be shown how to use their machinery and they're always 'Oh, it would take too long.... You wouldn't understand it.... We're far too busy.... Maybe another time....' How the heck do you get past that to get a bit of decent information out of these people? I mean any one of them could come round to my place and answer all my problems over a cup of tea, I've offered them all the spare money I have but they want far more than I can afford (£70 an HOUR one guy wanted, and that was to learn a totally unnecessarily complicated piece of software I'd never actually need to use but to him 'That's the ONLY way to do it, you know.') Another guy said he'd teach me on my software for £80 an hour which was 'the going rate'. Heck, if I could help any of them out I wouldn't want a penny, just because I'm in the same group. And they're all in high-earning jobs anyway, they must be to have that equipment. Any ideas on how to get a decent bit of help out of them without being bled white for the privilege? I've answered computer problems they've had whenever I can and not wanted anything in return. And the guy who used to be the group BOSS - he was the guru, the one they all went to when their systems went wrong, is now in the Asperger's group I go to sometimes and he still flat refuses to answer any of my questions though I know he could in a heartbeat if he wanted to. What is it about me that makes people not want to help out? That's one. The second one is double-barrelled. OK, so I've officially got learning disabilities. Now the next sentence(s) might come out as sounding wrong/bad/deprecating but they're not meant to, I promise you, it's just a description of the situation. I don't know how else to put this. Here goes - and if this sounds like I'm being nasty to other learning disableds I'm honestly not trying/meaning to be, I'm just saying it as it is to me.... Near me, there's a drop-in centre for learning disabled people. They want me to join in with the others and help reorganise the place, I think it's to save on building costs. Now that SEEMS innocuous enough - but the able-bodied lot think of me - rightfully or wrongfully, this is where things might sound worse than I mean them to - as one of the Users. I'm happy sitting with the users BUT I cannot get onto their wavelength. The only time I tried, there was one person extolling the virtues of cuddling toilets, another person making animal noises to try and impress two of the girls, a lady in her sixties with the attitude and behaviour of a child, a guy who was BEING VERY LOUD ON PURPOSE, another guy who tried to talk to me - bless him - but we couldn't find any subjects in common and he didn't have a long attention span anyway so he went off and BECAME VERY LOUD with the very loud one, a girl called Catherine constantly swaying and slapping her forehead - I tried talking to her to stop her from doing that but the staff warned me not to talk to her, I don't know why - and a guy in his forties who again was a child to all intents and purposes - I helped him with his reading book until he got bored and ran off to talk toilet-cuddling with the other guy. After that, one of the secretaries moaned about the sheer amount of typing she had to do. Now that's something I CAN do - I'm 80wpm - so I went straight over and volunteered. And all the staff looked at me as if I'd just tried to rob the till, and she grabbed up all her paperwork and vanished back into the office like a rabbit going back into a magician's hat! Now TECHNICALLY, on paper, after being given all the tests, that's the group I should feel right at home with - but I honestly can't get on their wavelength and I do try when I'm in the centre. The staff won't let me help them, though I CAN do it - promise! - they seem to have this attitude that you're either a Member of Staff or a User and a User cannot be a Helper. It's a real glass ceiling and it's been right on top of me for decades in different centres/places/situations. How do I get past it? And the Part 2 of the above is I'm the only one there who doesn't have a Carer. Which means I can't do a LOT of the days out, or activities, because for the dreaded 'Health And Safety's sake you can only do them if you have a carer to help keep you safe, blanket rule. So I get told I can just bring an able-bodied friend along and they'd pretend they were my carer but it's me we're talking about here, I have no friends, able-bodied or otherwise. That's why I'm here. I'm 48 years old and I've never had a friendship in my life. I've not been allowed to do an activity this year yet! Please, any ideas on the above? I promise I'll check back regularly and I won't miss any posts - but it's all happening next week, I'm willing to do it all but I'm beyond terrified at messing up, to be honest. I don't want to get banned from the day centre as well as everywhere else I'm banned from. I don't want to get alienated by/from the other users, I want to know how to get information out of the synth people and if this sentence seems confused it's because it's how it's all going around and around in my head right now. I'm willing to do all of it - I just need a bit of help to know HOW! Please, either of you? Yours hopefully Chris.

Seen-Thru, I would, now, like you to just hold off posting for a while until I sort this situation out, after which, I think it would be a good idea if Chris considers starting another, separate thread for he and you and anyone else to socialise on. Many thanks.

Dear Soulmate. I wasn't trying to be nasty to Seen-Thru or you or anybody, I was just asking a question. I'm very sorry if I've done the wrong thing without realising it - how have I put my foot in it this time, I'm not seeing it. I'm also not seeing what 'the situation' is I seem inadvertently to have caused.... Warned you I wasn't good at interpersonal things, didn't I! I think you're beginning to see HOW bad I am! But I wasn't trying to be nasty to Seen-Thru, though. Honest I wasn't. What have I done wrong? Whatever it is, I truly apologise for it. Yours respectfully Chris.

Noted with Respect.

Chris, I refuse to offer you any more advice or post about anything whatsoever until you explain yourself and your very childish conduct up there, and apologise. You're a mature gentleman now, whom, by your own admission, is no retard - with which I fully agree. Ridiculous tantrums like that one may have consistently worked in the past when it comes to getting you what you want, including in which order, in whatever other areas of your life. But I think where this very well mannered and well behaved forum community is concerned (a state myself and the owner have worked long and hard to achieve) - and my impossible-to-manipulate self in particular - you had better throw away your old rule book. Because it is NOT going to work on here to get you what you want, when you want it and how you want it, over and above what I myself have decided (as is *my* right, not yours or anyone else's). It was perfectly clear to anyone, even to a child of 10 (or - anyone who took the time to actually pay any befitting attention and cogitation to what I posted up there, I should add!), what I was saying to you and why, versus what I was NOT saying and intending. So there was absolutely zero need for all that fuss and bitter recriminations-throwing. It's my help you want, and this is my territory, meaning, my choice of methodology. So if I tell you I've decided I don't feel fit to help you (especially not when I'm currently too busy to suffer the constant frustration of almost total non-responsiveness to my questions and suggestions) until such time as you've got your patently dire need for social interaction more out of your system (and THEN merely for a couple of piddly weeks), then, that is what I've decided, full-stop, and you can take it or leave it. What you can NOT do is try this BARRAGE of emotional manipulation tactics comprising taking non-insults and -rejection as insults and rejection (followed by INSISTING that that's what they are as if I've NOT only just finished explaining, clarifying and disproving to the contrary), whilst cranking up the guilt- and pity-coercing dials all the way to 11. I do NOT pity you and never will. I have NOTHING to feel guilty or bad about and never will. Re-read our interactions from the start. I never at any time promised or even insinuated that this were a FRIEND-making exercise between you or I specifically. And, equally to the point, neither did you ever say that was what you wanted from me (if you had, I'd have immediately declined as I do with anyone or everyone). You asked for a 'sherpa'. I didn't, in fact, even agree or commit myself to *that*, despite I did by my subsequent actions agree to give it a good try. Well, that is going to be impossible to succeed at if you're going to fail and/or refuse to cooperate with me and then 'throw your teddy out of the pram' just because you don't want things the way I and the whole situation clearly need them. Are you going to cooperate with me from now on or aren't you? Response, TO THIS AND ONLY THIS issue, please.

I'm now filled with dread because I've obviously precipitated SOMETHING but I've no idea what it is, why it is, what I should be doing about it, why someone's being warned off from talking to me.... This is getting more and more like what happens to me in real life only too often and I've no idea why it happens then either. Please, why is it happening, what have I caused, how can I apologise, how can I say I honestly don't know what I've done wrong and make someone believe me - I'm feeling the same wellings of Nameless Cthulhu Dread these situations always engender in me when everyone else understands what's going on and I'm more lost than a blind man in Hampton Court Maze! Please, Soulmate, as you're the only one here now, can you explain to me what I've done, very simply and clearly so I understand? Please don't do the counsellor thing of leading me up to it and expecting me to magically understand it without it being explained to me - several counsellors have tried that one with me and it Flat Don't Work. One poor lady was busting a gut trying to get me to understand without being told, she had her supervisor in, it was totally clear to her, totally clear to the supervisor, I flat wasn't anywhere close. In the end they kinda gave up, sweat pouring off them - their conditioning against saying anything directly was too strong for them to actually TELL me things. (Considering the word 'counsel' means 'advice/advise' and that's the bit they're not allowed to do....) Please just gently spell it out for me. Whatever it is, I apologise profusely in advance - I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have done it deliberately, I just AM that gauche. Yours puzzledly Chris.

Then STOP pointlessly being filled with dread and, I repeat for the SECOND TIME, re-read all interactions between you and I from where they first began, and ONLY between you and I. In other words, no I am NOT going to spoon-feed you like you think I believe you're some child. You can put your brain to proper work for a change. Do NOT post until you've taken the time and trouble to at least try to work it all out and offer any number of explanations or theories on your part. That's your whole problem - not paying attention to what you're being told, making huge, negative assumptions, and knee-jerking and flying off the handle rather than responding in a reasonable, adult manner. I'll be back later this evening. So take your time.

Dear Soulmate. I have been co-operating with you. I've made sure if kids are around I always look the other way. I don't go into parks where kids are any more just incase, as you said, their parents took it the wrong way. I've re-read the posts and I don't see what questions I've missed. You ask me a list of straight questions and of course I'll answer them. If they're insinuation-type questions then I might well not spot them because I'm better at direct questions. But I'm not ignoring any questions of yours intentionally. Nor am I having any kind of a tantrum with you. You can't read emotions into E_mails (or postings) because you can't hear tones of voice. All I've done is stated things that have happened to me, which is what I thought this site was for. (None of this paragraph was said with any tones of rancour, accusation or any similar voice-tone.) I don't see why you thought I'd had a tantrum anywhere, but it wasn't meant (Sheesh, I'm obviously bad at this.) And as far as the questions go, just ask me a list of bald questions and you'll get accurate answers. If they're questions couched as other things, I could well have just missed the fact they WERE questions. I think it's the Asperger's. You have to ask me questions straight in order for me to know they are questions, I don't spot them if they're hidden in things (and please don't go down the 'But can't you see.... How obvious does it need to BE....' route because the answer is 'No I probably can't see unless there's a size 24 question mark at the end of it and it's one of a list of such questions! I've been there before with psychiatrists telling me I'm avoiding answering them and me not realising they're asking me anything!) So. I apologise if anything above read like a tantrum, I don't see it myself but it obviously seemed that way to you so I apologise for hurting your feelings/riling you up. You're welcome to test the truth of my remark about E_mails/postings having no vocal tones by intentionally couching a reply as a loss of temper to see if I spot it or not. Which might make you think I'm NOT-spotting it on purpose but I can't help that - I probably will genuinely not spot it. If I DO spot it, I'll tell you. The questions are not being ignored, they're not being SEEN. OK, it's as plain as an elephant in a matchbox to you what/where they are, it's not to me, maybe the learning disabilities kick in more than I like to think. I dunno. I'm not saying that to gain pity, I really don't know. I've not said anything here to gain pity, just stating facts about what's happened to me to help you understand my situation in relating/not relating to others. Like if you tell a doctor you're feeling like death/vomiting every hour, you're not hoping for 'Awww...., poor 'ickle sick person!' You're hoping she'll put your information into a diagnosis and give you the right treatment to help you get better. I used some sardonic remarks and a couple of cracks in a couple of the posts because it felt like what happens to me in real life, I apologise for those. They weren't said in malice, just in a spirit of wise-crackery, they obviously went down like the Titanic so I'm sorry I said them, I won't try for that kind of humour any more. And that's genuine. Ask me a list of questions STRAIGHT OUT and I'll answer them all. Give me shopping lists of Things To Do and I'll do them. I avert my eyes when kids are around, I'm not a habitual kid-watcher anyway, was just sitting in a tiny London park, nothing else to do, so I was watching what was going on around me and there happened to be a playground of kids, I did not go to that park because I knew there would be a playground of kids there. I have a disability bus-pass that entitles me to free bus travel over most of the United Kingdom and I was just bus-hopping to see where they'd take me. No premeditation/malice aforethought. So I AM doing what you tell me - when I SEE what you're telling me to do, when it's a statement by itself. I'm obviously missing others and I'm not seeing them on re-reading either. I don't know why, maybe I'm just stupider than I gave myself credit for, that's always a possibility. And that's just a statement with no overtones in, too. Finally, and again without trying for any kind of pity, I've always been like this. I've been in groups of kids when I was a kid and they were all glancing at me, glancing at themselves, snorting with laughter, making funny hand movements which meant nothing to me, falling about with laughter and to this day I've no real idea what was going on, or why, or what I was doing to cause it. I've also been in similar situations with grown-ups, there's all kinds of glances/nods/ sniggers/odd questions going on and I can vaguely see SOMETHING's up, I'm obviously part of the SOMETHING - but I've zero idea what the SOMETHING is. A few times it SEEMS to be to keep me there until the bouncer gets there but not always. How do I couch stuff/write stuff so you don't read emotions into it I never intended to be there? And please - I genuinely haven't had a lot of the life experiences you and probably most other people have so my reactions to things tend to be a little non-standard, psychiatrists have told me that before. But again that's not intentional, they're genuine reactions, maybe though not the ones you're expecting. I don't know how else to say that bit! I want to do the right things. I'm just not doing very well right now, am I. Start off with a list of straight questions and you'll get a list of straight answers. Yours respectfully Chris.

Please stop insisting on playing dumb and being disingenuous, Chris. You only have Asperger's, not half your brain missing...not full-on Autism...not two bottles of Whiskey downed in-one plus a head-on collision with a lamppost... 1. Most of my questions featured question-marks. Please go back through all of my posts and find them. Note each on a list but delete whichever you know you have already addressed/answered. And then 'hand me' the list. (Don't answer the questions themselves, just provide them in a listed format.) That shouldn't be a hard task even for an 8 year-old because the posts that contain them are NOT 'well and truly buried' as you put it, they're there - still - in full view black & white, perfectly easy to scroll down through and read. Proof: you DID spot and attempt to address the question in statement format (i.e. NOT a clear-cut question) that went 'What paedophiles do'. 2. When I said you hadn't been cooperating, that didn't pertain to the paedophilia-paranoia issue or any remedial action you might have been trying in the meantime in 'real life'. I was talking exclusively about said failure to notice and answer prior questions and then the additional fact of your not having even noticed whom out of the two of us (i.e. myself and Seen-Thru) had posed the query about what type of music you liked - an error on your part that was definitive proof of you not paying proper attention/rushing when you read. 4. Neither have I accused you of having failed to read certain contents of my posts *on purpose*. I just meant that you have not paid proper attention to most of what I've been telling you, questioning you about or 'running past you' as ideas. And that's because you've understandably been too busy having fun for a change, talking about what you see as being 'fun topics'. What did you do when learning all about the very complexly and complicatedly intellectual concept that is Pesharim, when you came across a paragraph that was a bit hard to get your brain around in one go? I imagine you tried re-reading it a second or more time whilst exerting a greater level of concentration, didn't you? Well, then. I expect the same level of attention and concentration. 5. ...which brings me back to today: At 4.05pm I asked you to go back and re-read all the interactions between you and I only, and to take your time. You posted your response only 36 minutes later. Given that that reply of yours would have taken you time to compose, write, read, edit (and possibly re-edit) - no WAY did you dedicate enough time to re-reading and properly re-considering everything I've said and asked you about since I started on here. In a piddly 36 minutes, you wouldn't have had time to give proper consideration even just to what I'd been trying to explain *since last night*. So please now do what I've asked you to do - go through every post of mine, note down all the questions I asked, cross off the ones you DID respond to, and then 'hand' me a list of those you didn't. Let me see you find them...because, Chris, if you really can't manage that, then, chatting from time to time WHEN I have time is ALL I can possibly offer you in terms of 'help'. And now I'll start you off by giving you ONE question from that whole list (just to start you off): "(PS: where's your dad these days?)" Basically, you won't ever catch ME sniggering or whispering in full view behind your back or taking the mickey. If you displease/obstruct me and my aims and objectives in any way, you can bet your a*se I'll anywhere between tell you and spell it out for you. Alright? ************************* PS: Now to me: 1. "Nor am I having any kind of a tantrum with you. Tantrum...freak-out of the Persecution-Complex variety... major pity-party with your hands over your ears and eyes... - call it what you like, but, YES YOU WERE. You went from Nought to Sixty in terms of, 'you're both rejecting me, you're just like that bouncer, you're all the same, oh my god, woe is me, everybody hates me and it's happening again, boo-hoo' (basically), and didn't even stop when I and Seen-Thru each took the trouble to explain how you'd got the wrong ends of the sticks entirely and tried to reassure you (because you still weren't paying proper - or any - attention). 2. "You can't read emotions into E_mails (or postings) because you can't hear tones of voice." Oh yeah? WRONG! The large majority of people in this world can't, but I can. Oh BOY can I! And without even trying (I was born like it). How I can or why I can is a mystery that shall probably remain evermore so. But I still can. It's one of the things that make me so damned disconcerting or downright threatening to roughly half the people I meet and downright impressive and useful to the rest. It's a curse. And a gift. And then a curse again. (And repeat...) 3. It's literally practically impossible on here to hurt my feelings in any way, shape or form. If ever with anyone I act hurt/insulted/whatever then it's a deliberate act on my part due to the fact it would serve some productive/cathartic purpose (for them). Only those with whom I have real-life intimate relationships can affect my emotional state in any way. Save for mild annoyance and frustration (we're talking very mild). That's why I'm virtually impossible to manipulate/affect/influence. Oh, yes, Chris...You're not the only one around here who's special in some way. Why - did you think you were?

Dear Soulmate. Firstly, the 'E_mail well and truly buried' did NOT refer to your E_mail here, but to the notification E_mail buried in the spam-bucket I laughingly call my IN_box! And as far as 'very childish conduct' goes - the moment I spoke to Seen-Thru, you got offended because I wasn't just listening to you as I should have been and retreated faster than the Brits in the Battle of the Light Brigade! The only time I got your wisdom back was when I stopped talking to Seen-Thru, and now you've banished Seen-Thru so there can't be any competition, so it's just you and me. That's what tells me you were cross because I wasn't exclusively talking to you. If I've misunderstood on that one, tell me. My father died about two years ago. I was not allowed to go to his funeral, nor was I allowed to know where he was during the last couple of years of his life, I wish I had been. He always had a huge problem with disability, I was always, in his words, his 'monster child' and 'his cross to bear' (sorry for the religious allusion.) He always told me I'd amount to nothing and, despite trying to prove him wrong on that, thus far he is right and I hate that fact. When you're disabled, it's amazing how many people want to deny you chances and how few want to give them and no that is not a dig. I also have no idea where he's buried, the other two won't tell me. Same with my uncle and aunt. At that point, you both WERE behaving like the bouncer. I've had it so often I can tell when it's happening. Incidentally - and this is not a dig either - could you tell me ways to handle the disability (learning disabled) group coming up for me this Friday? I described the entire experience I had last time, I don't REALLY want to go through the same level of fear in that place again - and that level of not knowing what to do/how to behave/react IS terrifying for me even if not necessarily for you. BUT - regardless of what you consider your special power of accurately inferring overtones in situations where no vocal tones can exist - I was not angry. Throwing up my hands in exasperation, yes, but (at that point) with a smile on my face. I didn't - and am still not certain because nobody's spelling it out for me and I'm absolutely useless at inferences, I can tell WHEN someone's inferring something - sometimes, I don't think always - but I don't always, or even often 'get' to what they're alluding. Yes, I do get hold of wrong ends of sticks frequently, I even hang onto the wrong end like a terrier with lockjaw. But the bouncer one I know only too well. I don't think of myself as special in any way. I came on here because it's a problem site where people, in theory, offer answers to your problems. Whether or not the answers WORK is then up to the asker to find out - but they are supposed to offer answers. And yes, I suppose that IS a slight dig, but only a slight one. Don't over-react to it. By the way - did you think you were the ONLY person who uses your Number 3 trick? I used it then to emphasize my point - the fact you didn't SPOT I was using it is what told me you're not as good at reading tones of voice into postings as you think you are. As emphasizing meanings to get points over seems to turn you into a well-meaning stick of dynamite, I won't use THAT one again either, or I'll try not to. In real life if I'd been saying all that, you'd have seen a smile to show I was exasperated, not angry. And yes I can have a persecution complex. If you'd lived in a town for 20 years or more where you were playing the coloured guy to the locals' KKK you might well develop one of those too. And no it wasn't just me in Hastings. Hastings was a dumping ground for all the idiots the other towns didn't know what to do with. Which might well include me, I dunno. Back then, Hastings had a huge mental asylum - Queen Charlotte's Hospital - it had - and still has - loads of Homes for teens with anti-social behaviour, quite a few in London Road, that's where I met my friend who now lives in Bedford, I spent my time protecting her from the others who'd mug her at every opportunity, just like they'd do to me. Or any other disabled/easily muggable person they came across. Getting a giro was a nightmare - they'd be waiting outside the post-office for you to come out with the money. The BIG post-office knew about this problem and would let me sit inside for ages sometimes until they got bored of waiting outside and went away. Sometimes there'd be a bunch of us, nervously looking out of the window to see if the idiots had gone and it was safe for us to go and jump a bus. We never talked during those times, it felt like talking in a library and we were all too scared anyway. And no, that's not said to gain sympathy, it's a statement of what things were like then. Now, the place has been cleaned up a bit - but I still wouldn't trust living there. When I lived - briefly - in Rothesay Road, mornings were a zombie set. Everyone sitting on doorsteps with cans of extra-strong lager, red faces, moaning about where to get money for their next can, if they could lie to Social to get another loan out of them. If I, or anyone similar, walked down Carisbrooke Road, off Rothesay Road, at that point, there'd be a huge, thoughtful, 'is-he-worth-mugging' silence - what used to save you was they being too drunk/hungover to actually DO it at that point. In the afternoon, when they'd sobered up a bit and wanted to change that unwonted state of affairs, THEN you had to spend your time dodging! Again not just me, other disabled people too, just because I'm asking about things that happened to me doesn't mean I don't think they happen to other people as well. They do. I just don't want them to happen to me as often/have coping mechanisms to stop them happening to me. If I know how to stop them happening, I can teach others, no? IF you think - and I'm presuming here - 'Towns just don't work like that...' most don't. We'd gotten the last umpteen loads of Queen Charlotte's inmates in the community, plus people moved to Hastings from loads of other towns because they were 'too hot to handle' there, plus all the locals who'd learned behaviour patterns from the Queen Charlotte's/Other Towns lot just as a cat, if brought up by a dog, will learn to behave like a puppy! (Protective colouration, would you say? Yes I tried to get good at fighting, Dad tried to teach me how to street-fight but I'm plain not fast enough. I know the moves but can't do them quickly enough. I have to cheat and use 'found weapons' like broken glasses/bottles etc. to stand any chance at all and usually they just use them back on me and yes I've got scars to prove that.) And I'm not 'playing at being dumb', I'm being me. Straight-out me. Absolutely honest. If you can't see that and think that just because something's obvious to you it's obvious to the rest of the world and if it's not it's because they're being stupid, not because you have to explain it in a way they CAN understand, then re-read the first three sentences of this paragraph until the penny drops. Just so you understand what the penny's SAYING - if I can't do the 'inference' thing then why should I assume others can or that I'm making the right inferences for them to draw - what you've hit is the same problem lots of other people hit with me - I SOUND intelligent but I don't grasp what they're trying to say. It's not on purpose. That IS my problem, call it mental, learning-difficulty, Autistic, Caetextic (now there's one you might have to look up, it's a new one!) or whatever. I know I'm hopeless at inferences. In different ways, to both of us it must feel like trying to grab bars of wet soap. That I can sympathise with because I know that about me, please, if I miss something, or you think you've said something in a way 99.9% of the world would understand but haven't totally spelled it out - I might miss it. I might get it, but also I might well miss it. If I DO, it's not intentional. All you have to do is say 'Chris, this is what you've missed...' and spell it out. The alternative is 'Chris, you missed something in my last post, please re-read...' but that one is fraught with me then reading meanings you never intended INTO what you've said . Which again wouldn't be deliberate, it would be me desperately trying to spot what I missed and twisting everything in sight to see if I could find the right thing. Which would be dead obvious to you, as you'd written it. So that's the two questions you just asked me answered (I hope!) I'm now going back through the posts to try and see what I've missed, taking the previous paragraph I've just typed into consideration. :-) Thinking about it, maybe I should use smiley faces to show when I'm exasperated and when I'm angry, make life easier for you, what do you think? (Maybe we both should!) This is Part One. Part Two will be the answers to all your questions including the ones I thought were rhetorical. Yours Respectfully Chris.

And here's all the answers to all your questions, including the ones I thought were rhetorical:- If you weren't facially different, SOME people would just find something ELSE to (cough!) react to. Get it? Er - no. And no I hadn't looked at it like that. I mean I see people walking along in groups all the time, perfectly friendly to eachother, not trying to find ways to mug eachother. I turn up and it's ''Scuse, they just wheelclamped your spaceship.' 'What. The rhymes-with-duck. Is THAT!?!' And so on. (That last was from another disabled guy in a wheelchair, by the way, I told you I get it just as bad from other disableds.) (Had you even looked at it like that?) No I hadn't, read the above answer for clarification. Life is a basic training army camp. If your exercise obstacle course features ruddy great mountains to climb where the mere grunts have just monkey bars and the like then - what does THAT tell you? Tells me you need a Sherpa Tensing to help you learn how to climb mountains, not just a sergeant-major to yell you over obstacles. Takes more training to climb a mountain than do monkey-bars, that's why people die on mountains every year. Oh, and also - what was the young blind woman like?...you know - she who doesn't even HAVE a face! Or anybody else's face for that matter! As in, "What's 'a face'?". A face is what the world immediately judges you on, that's how come every film monster starts off with a non-human face. If a face isn't 'as expected', the immediate reaction of the onlooker is 'Oh my God. It must be a monster. Maybe it's going to hurt me!' and they band together to protect themselves against the perceived threat, real or otherwise. Incidentally that's why I hate, loathe and detest comedy and comedians. The whole point of comedy is to band you together AGAINST some members of society, be it mothers-in-law, employers, politicians, disabled people - yes, I've seen plenty of comedians use disability as an easy target. The point of comedy is to make you think you're better than those being lampooned. It's an intentional negation of the level playing-field all should be on and it's an emotion I think has long, long passed the point where it was a survival trait - band together against the local fauna -and is now used to polarize attitudes against societal groups the comedian happens to hate. Homes of vitriolic hate like 'That Was The Week That Was', 'Not the Nine O'clock News' etc. should never have been scheduled, IMHO. Comedy is a polarizing and sanitizing of fear -and I can prove that. But anyway. The blind woman was lovely, she just didn't want to talk to me - understandable, I'm a boring sod - and when one of the others described me to her - I'm pretty sure that's what he was doing because he was casting sly looks in my direction all the time - I had no chance anyway. But never mind. (*SOME* humans!) (And, No, it's because it sounds a much more self-pity-servicing way to think because self-pitying drains you of energy and boxes you into paralysis as then lets your mind off the actions-taking hook.) Because, unlike you (yet), I'm very much plugged-in to what's going on outside of my head as equally as in, and what I noted he DIDN'T do was this: nothing. But what would be so wrong if it had been however much a case of her [I realise my earlier typo of 'he' - soz] seeing a BOGOF to be had, anyway? Surely the end result was what you three had been after? How do you think this blind woman would have felt if she'd cottoned on to the fact or got later informed that some bloke had rejected an introduction to her? I hope for her sake the poor woman (single, yes? - nuff said) didn't assume it was because she can't see or that, unbeknown to her, she's too unattractive? (Is that a "Gotcha!"?) I didn't really understand that paragraph when I read it the first time. 'BOGOF' is kid's slang for 'Bugger Off', no? So you're saying he was getting both of us to 'bugger off' on eachother, thus getting rid of two problems simultaneously! Which she - it's a lady named Tuppy Owens, google her, she was a porn star once - might well have been doing. If you think that's what she was doing, then fine, I'll take your word for it unreservedly. How's about you tell that matchmaker you've had second thoughts? I think you should - you sound absolutely fine to me, a perfectly articulate (what's more - EMOTIONALLY so...that's rare for a bloke [ducks rotten tomatoes]) and interesting gentleman with a lot of experiences that most people can't even conceive of, let alone imagine. I mean, you do realise you could write the most incredible autobiography? As for song lyrics - ...?! Either of those would solve TWO problems (- at least!) in one hit, wouldn't they? (Do you want to know how to write a book? What interesting experiences? Go out....avoid everyone....if you don't avoid them all you get mugged/lampooned (still hate comedy!) beaten up-for-fun.... go to Casualty if you've been hit harder than normal or go home again. What's interesting there? As far as the blind lady goes I think the other guy was putting her off me because he wanted 'a go' at her, I don't know if anything came of it with those two but I've got absolutely no idea how to talk to women, or people in general, anyway, that's one of the reasons I'm here. I wanna learn. Incidentally - if you don't class yourself as a friend or a Sherpa, why call yourself Soulmate!?! Tad misleading, no? :-) And I'd love to know how to write a book. (- telesales...from home - hello?) Yer-s-s-s, you have a point with that one, but it involves laying out large sums of money to buy dodgy goods in the hope of being able to ram them down unsuspecting people's throats using every psychological trick in the book. Do you think that's me? What's your GP doing about your situation, by the way? Has s/he not referred you to anyone or anywhere yet? Have you even asked? And what about the National Autistic Society (NAS)? What are they - chopped liver? You see, I notice things that *aren't* said as much as are. Are you a 'provide too much unasked-for information to distract from potentially uncomfortable queries' merchant? In reverse - I'm never sure how you're going to react to anything. You DO jump to conclusions that while not 'wrong' per se, are totally not the conclusions I'm expecting. So I try to give you all the information I can so you can't misunderstand - yes you do, put the porcupine back in its box. If that means I'm overdoing the info, fair enough - I don't know what is safe to leave out so I include the lot. I didn't know about NAS until you told me about them. I've sent them an E_mail which they have yet to answer, I've sifted the whole spam bucket. And there are no 'potentially uncomfortable queries'. There's ones I miss, or there's inferred ones I don't understand, or there's ones I think are rhetorical and you think they're not and I apologise for those ones in advance, if I miss something because I think it's rhetorical - as in there to make me think, not to be answered per se - and it SHOULD have been answered, then tell me. Like I'm doing with these right now. My GP hasn't referred me anywhere. Why should a DOCTOR refer me anywhere on this? Surely it's more the province of a psych. of some sort - and they're expensive beasts! Can't afford shrinks even if they would do me good. Besides, they never tell you anything because if they DID, they'd lose their cash-cow. When I was at school I was doing SO badly socially they put me under a shrink to find out why. I got on like a house on fire with the shrink, he never worked out why I couldn't do so with the other kids. Spoiler Alert - the moment they saw me, their Pavlovian reaction was to 'bark at' or 'bite' me (keeping with the theme of dogs!) Have you never even once thought about starting a campaign or, as a baby-step, a blog - to start the ball rolling in bringing about the very changes in attitudes you wish your average man on the street possessed (aside from the minimum and minority that gets bandied around in the media)? What are YOU? Again - chopped liver? What are you waiting for? SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT? Soulmate, who the hell would listen to a fat, middle aged spacmo apart from a lady such as yourself? I'm sorry I'm hard work, I guess I've a lot to learn and I am answering all the questions I've found on retrospect. Never mind that, S-T - we prefer cash! (although American Express will do nicely) LOL. No but, seriously, folk - thank-you very much for saying so. [Smiling] (I think it's Chris, actually; he's very inspirational, isn't he?) I'd like to think I am! I hope you pay better attention this time round?...you and your 'Yours respectfully'?) I'll try to. What about the Peter Pan Playground at Worthing? Y'see, I wasn't sure if that question was a trap or not. I'm still not sure. You'd told me how wrong it was to want to watch kids, then you tell me somewhere to go to watch kids. If I jumped at the opportunity, that would prove to you I WAS a paedo, no? See? I DO think outside the box! (Is THAT a 'Gotcha'!?!) Don't you watch the telly or read the papers, Chris? Oddly enough I don't even possess a television. Just a computer. And I don't miss the television for one moment, I never watched it much anyway. As far as reading papers go, I love the New Scientist and - when it's not having a totally-up-itself day - the Manchester Guardian. Of course I read the Morning Star every time I see one, New Socialism - I think Socialists miss the point of their own endeavours but that's something utterly off-topic - the Daily Worker - that tends to pop up at demonstrations, yes, it's out there still, just! and similar periodicals. WHY I don't watch the News is why I wrote you the second poem, 'Nine-O'clock News', but you never commented on it so it must have been pretty awful. On the whole, apart from the Metro which is free on buses (and about 80% into selling incredibly expensive homes anyway) I don't read papers save for those mentioned above, no. (The last Guardian I read was well over a month back, I read a Morning Star a couple of days ago when I saw one in W.H.Smiths of all places.) So how was he supposed to know you were one of the GOOD (kid-watching) guys? Do you yourself sport a notice around your neck saying, 'Not a paedophile, just like innocently watching kids'? I'm gonna answer that one WITH a question. You're at a party. A guy smiles and comes over to you. Is your first reaction 'He's gonna try to be friendly but he'll try it on if I let him' or 'WAAH! He might have a bottle of Rohypnol in his pocket - I'm off!' I think the father's reaction tended towards the second more than the first and yes that is a question even if it's sans question mark. Chopin - is he a favourite of yours? Chopin's one of these player/composers who wrote stuff to show off his own particular skills more than to be played by others - he was kinda the Frank Mills of his day (Music Box Dancer was Frank's BIG hit but he wrote loads of gorgeous other stuff.) Bela Bartok's another one - I'm SURE Bela had twelve fingers to play his stuff! My music teacher was always chucking Bartok at me and I was never dexterous enough to play it properly. PS: Do you like Air and Bassomatic? When I saw that I thought you meant 'Curved Air' but you don't, do you. I'd never heard of Air before you mentioned them but they're not bad, leetle 'funky' for me but at least they don't use vocals. Hate - on the whole, few exceptions - vocals. Once you've heard one guy going 'EYE LURVE YEW BAY-BEH!' you've heard 'em all. Bassomatic - hell, YUCK! Some mulatto female singing - eesh - about 'fascinating rhythms'. Try Tangerine Dream, The Enid (yes they have vocals but they're intelligent and they do do great instrumentals) Sweet People instrumentals (Alain Morisod - now THERE'S an ego problem. He's got a wife who could break your heart by singing the telephone directory and HE does most of the vocals on their tracks. They've done a collection of lovely instrumentals, though.) I WISH he'd let his wife have ONE GOOD SONG all to herself. Just once. Other bands - try Yellow Brick Cinema, Phil Thornton, Phil Chapman (he's gone now, R.I.P. Phil!) anyone on New World Records.... (the Brit. label, not the unaffiliated jazz American label) WISH I could use synths. like Air, then I'd write tracks like them. If only I could find someone to teach me how to control the synths...grrrr...!! (That's rhetorical.) Fave radio station? Beautiful Music Radio dot com. Why? They play INSTRUMENTAL VERSIONS of all the pop songs, you get the lovely tunes, NOT the 'orrible vocals! 'You think getting mistaken for being RETARDED is my biggest problem? My answer to a recent, similar idiot was 'Nope, being retarded's fine. It's w*kers like you who are my biggest problem!' THIS time I WON the fight. (SEE? Can win fights!) Did you ever see that little wheelchair-bound lad/comedian Jack in Britain's Got Talent? Isn't he clever, eh? Well he's the EXACT AND PERFECT REASON why I hate comedy. Think about it. He's encouraging able-bodied people to laugh at people in wheelchairs or who are disabled. So he's encouraging people to behave towards him as they behave towards me. So if you think he's funny you are, by inference, sanctioning everything that's been happening to me or many others in similar positions for decades. He's making people laugh at him because he's in a wheelchair. If a coloured guy went on stage at a White Supremacist's meeting, they could tell only very slightly altered versions of the same jokes and get laughter because the White Supremacists would be 'primed' to laugh at the coloured guy, the same as able-bodied people are 'primed' to laugh at disability. All Jack was doing was getting cheap laughs at himself. So no I don't think he was clever. I think he was particularly ill-advised, was only on public TV because the TV bosses knew it would get cheap laughs at a 'safe target' - disabled people and if I'd been in charge of the show I'd've cut the whole sequence. Comedy and humour are weapons to make people forget about their own problems by being able to pin them on others. 'Huh. I might be unemployed and drink too much but at least I'm not as repulsive as that effin' retard. HOI, MATE! WHAT THE BLEEP ARE YOU THEN? Ho-Ho-Ho!' I've got EXACTLY the same beef against ALL disabled comedians - they're just reinforcing unwanted stereotypes in the minds of the able-bodied. They're not being clever at all - they're being particularly stupid for all of us and that includes Jack. Humour is a leftover reflex from caveman days when it was used to band humans together against big ugly animals and make them think, because they could denigrate the animals, that they had a chance against them and weren't crippled by fear. THEN it had a purpose. NOW it's a liability. Think of all the nasty 'smart' comments you've ever received or could ever conceive of receiving and formulate and practise in the mirror a perfect comedy retort or set of retorts for each. If it makes YOU giggle or gaffaw then you know you're onto a winner. Soulmate, you're more wrong on THAT one than I imagined you possibly COULD be. You've missed your viewpoint. That would work if both were able-bodied. If one's disabled and retorts, the 'spastic's got one over on the able-bodied person. Which is impossible - how can a spastic possibly be smart enough to outwit the able-bodied person (think Hitler being sure nobody could beat his Perfect Aryans at the Olympics!) So the only way for the able-bodied guy to save face is to steam in on you. Especially if he's with friends. The friends make an impromptu ring, the guy steams in on you and usually you're the one who ends up with the bruises. Like I keep saying - sometimes I win one. Just like being a jew in Hitler's Germany, all you can really do is keep your head down except sometimes THAT doesn't work EITHER. They're drunk and out to get a reaction from SOMEONE to have an excuse for a fight. So they follow you and make the epithets worse and worse. If you STILL don't react, by that time they've worked themselves up so much they're gonna have their fight at all costs, so they come up to you with 'OI, WASSAMARRER? YOU NOT LISTENING TO ME YOU F'N IGNORANT BAR STEWARD?' (say it fast!) and by that time you might as well get ready for the beating because it's sure gonna happen, all you can do is hope you're not mugged, it doesn't last too long and you manage to get a few good ones back before you hit the ground. That's ANOTHER time comedy is your enemy - you've made the other guy look like the clown so he truly feels he owes you one for that. And he'll pay in full. Comedy's always dangerous, Soulmate, I can't think of one situation where it's not a double-ended dagger. If they're out to bash you, you're gonna get bashed. Trust me. Thirty-five years experience or more. And if you stand around gurning, you either get moved on by the cops or it's an excuse to get the idiots as mentioned above in full flight. 10. Why does too much time on your hands 'scare you' when you're so multi-talented and could keep yourself occupied enjoyably for many more hours per time than 99.9% of the population? Because I'm usually too damned scared to go out. I work on music - and the idiot downstairs kicks my door in for making too much noise (this is in full daytime when there's pneumatic drills outside!) I tell the housing people - and they come in on HIS side and say if I don't stop making noise and disturbing him, I'll have my computer confiscated and be chucked out on the streets and Housing in Brighton won't have any official remit to put me anywhere, I'll just be street homeless. And the idiot downstairs has repeatedly told me he wants to see me out on the streets, or in a Home, not living where 'normal people' have to put up with looking at me - his words. 'Why should I have to put up with living with that fat retard?' More of his words. If I go out, I get all the problems I've been writing to you about - or I'm never sure when the next bunch of said problems is going to leap up to bite me - it's like being in a dogs' home, are they going to bite me or let me stroke them? Example - I'm on a bus. It was stopping, I was swinging a bit like Tarzan from one of the overhead hand-holds - NOT intentionally, just because of the bus' momentum - and I nearly bumped into a woman going past me so I said 'Sorry!' and she rounded and went 'I don't talk to effin' retards like you!' And I suddenly noticed all the people on the bus were giving me little side-long looks, not one of them was speaking up for me and I felt very, very lonely. I got off the bus, went into the shopping centre, into the Gents', had a full-on panic attack/shaking fit in a cubicle for about ten minutes, calmed myself down, went back out, stood in a corner till I'd convinced myself the passing population wouldn't jump on me the moment I emerged - that's a leftover from schooldays when that sorta thing used to happen! - and went out and got the next bus. It was totally full - yet not one person would sit on the empty seat next to me! What does that tell you, Soulmate? (I know, that I'm fishing for sympathy again. I'm not. It's statements of fact.) if God COULD keep disabled people from being born, first of all he wouldn't have a wad in Leviticus telling people to keep them away from him and secondly Jesus wouldn't have anyone to perform miracles on!" - High Five again for the latter, and re the former, you forgot again that Leviticus was written by HUMAN hand, not God's. Erm - I thought the whole point of the Bible was it's God's Word? You can't say the bits that don't 'chime right' are human additions and the bits that DO 'chime right' are God's Original Statements, that's cheating! You've gotta remember that what both God and the Devil are up for is Armageddon. That's what the whole shebang's about. Both sides collecting souls for their armies so when Armageddon comes, they're both ready. Except the Devil knows he's on borrowed time - the only reason God has him around is because God painted himself into a corner a bit with Freedom of Choice, so he's hoping that - if God IS a 'he', before you howl! - if you go down the Devil's route and get burned, you'll go back to God. If the Devil didn't exist, then you'd have no freedom of choice because you wouldn't have anything to choose BETWEEN. (Think 'one-party state'!) Being a Fallen Angel, the Devil knows what Heaven WAS like. The only way he knows what it IS like now is via the Nephilim. Who are kinda his stormtroopers. No, the Devil does NOT reign in Hell, that's where Jesus reigns, or has the keys, look in Revelations if you don't believe me. So Jesus sits at God's Right Hand in Heaven, has complete control (therefore reigns supreme) in Hell, has the Four Horsemen as HIS stormtroopers (them v. the Nephilim should be awesome when the time comes!) the Devil's the Man who Fell to Earth (sorry Bowie!) and is desperately trying to stack up souls on his side so he's not swept aside when Armageddon dawns. THAT's the Biblical message as shown to me by a Jehovah's Witness, ex-sergeant major, invalided out. He also told me that as I'd been 'gotten at' by the Devil before birth, I was at a huge disadvantage because people would sense the devil in me even though they wouldn't realise that's what they were sensing, which could explain a lot, no? You tell me. BTW - I didn't realise what you put was lyrics, I thought you'd shown me one of your poems so I thought I'd show you one of mine. Or two, but the second one obviously didn't go down too well, which is fair enough, I'm not fishing for anything (well... not without the concrete toadstool and Noddy's spare hat!) If I've missed any other questions, tell me and I'll find them and answer them. I'm not trying to dodge anything. Never do. Yours respectfully Chris.

Chris, yes, I'm afraid you have got me, and the situation (as well the order of events) I'm trying to explain to you, very wrong (- obviously can't or aren't ready to throw away the rulebook yet.) I haven't got time [understatement!] to respond properly for now, however, I will, just as soon as I find a decent window. But for the time being, regarding these important meetings you've got coming up, which, I gather, are to do with mixing music: After saying hello and introducing yourself (presumably to a group of them?) and asking them all about their own music and mixing preferences, I would just be honest, but, at the same time, appeal to their senses of importance and friendly group rivalry, in terms of who amongst them is "the bomb" at mixing/producing... (If the class has an obvious teacher figure, obviously he/she would be one to ask as well.) ...During or right after your introduction, tell them to please not to be fooled by your appearance, that you're not slow-minded, but that, as an amateur computerised music producer (whatever the label is), *are* utterly desperate for whomever of them - or however many of them - have the true expertise and talent enough to be capable of quickly showing you how to use the software you saved up for so long to buy yet which, sadly, has been sat collecting dust ever since...or, whomever knows enough that they can redirect you to whatever groups or individuals that COULD help. **** - People will take to you more if you subtly play 'TV interviewer to their celebrity' because people tend to LOVE getting the chance to talk about themselves and their pet interests (so write a list of things you wish to know, beforehand, on a pad...which you can take with you to jot down any useful tidbits you're told or overhear). - Try, ideally, to approach the eldest members or anyone you can tell is shy or a bit awkward when it comes to group participation. - Do NOT slump your shoulders and stare mainly at your shoes the whole time. - If you find direct eye-contact difficult, stare at the point between their eyebrows at the top of the bridge of their nose. But remember to avert your gaze for a second or two, here and there, like one tends to do whenever one IS making genuine eye-contact. Let your face 'talk for you' if the talker is engrossed in whatever he's saying: if you feel surprised or inspired whilst they're on a verbal roll, say, 'Ah!' and 'Ooh' and 'Oh?' and 'Really?' and 'Wow!' with your facial expressions. - Don't fire questions at them in too-rapid succession. Try to allow them to finish whatever they're saying or to ask YOU any question(s) back, before you ask your next... especially as, the more you let them ramble on and on, the more likely you are to spot any really useful tips or techniques 'spilling out' (which again, you can jot down (briefly, note) - this only adding to their sense of being the Big I Am being interviewed/treated as special). - Make appreciative noises as you listen (if there's room), e.g., 'Wow, I didn't know that!' and 'You really do know your stuff, don't you'. But only if such compliments hold even just a morsel of truth in terms both of what they know that you don't and how inspired they're answers are making you feel. - The MOST IMPORTANT thing to do, as soon as you walk into the room, is to be smiling gently (think Mona Lisa) but, switching to really widely and warmly whenever someone catches your eye. The psych fact is that we are all at our most attractive/magnetic when in a place we love to be and/or doing something we love to do. - If it'll help, try to imagine that you're thinking of writing and submitting an article to any of the appropriate industry/special-interest magazines [name some, know which ones they are], which is to include a part about how supremely difficult it is for the amateur mixer without any such special interest network or, worse, no regular income, to find anywhere between brief assistance and some form of mentoring from those higher up the 'mixing food-chain' than yourself and other beginners or less technically-mindeds. If you find on the day that you feel really bold, you could SAY that writing an article is one of your reasons for attending the gathering/class (investigative reporting). This in fact would be altogether do-able in reality (your writing skills are more than adequate, after all, and your information-accrual problem a valid one which I'm sure you're not alone in experiencing), so would be anywhere between a Little White Lie or, at some point in the future, truth, meaning, you could do so with a clear conscience. You would also the be very well placed to ask for their email address (in case you find your article is missing or not quite clear enough on any important facts and information). If you're seen asking questions and taking notes from one individual, and that individual appears suitably engrossed and animated, I imagine a lot of others' curiosities will be piqued enough for them to want to 'shuffle over' and listen/participate. - Remember to be polite... please; thank-you; sorry, I interrupted you there - please carry on with what you were saying (or, shorthand version, 'sorry - you were saying?...about [x]?'.) Hope that helps for now.

SEEN-THRU, COULD I NOW PLEASE "UN-PAUSE" YOU FOR THE TIME BEING (re. continuing your prior conversations with Chris)? As I don't have time at the mo to finish explaining where and how Chris misunderstood or missed the point, it wouldn't be fair to make him meantime wait in silence, twiddling his thumbs. Thanks, ST, for your graciousness; I know from that, that you yourself didn't have any trouble understanding or appreciating where I was coming from. :-)

PS Chris, just to let you know: Your Dyspraxia (and, I suspect, ADHD) is what's having a huge bearing on your ability to not completely miss things/instructions or lose sight of the original objective and 'wander at high speed off the main path for miles', but your Asperger's is not the reason why you're desperately trying to pigeonhole me according to the standards of the majority of people you've come across. Whether you were AS (including any co-morbidities) or NT, what's standing in your way are the after-effects and knock-ons of all that social abuse you've suffered, which is a perfectly warranted, normal and HEALTHY reaction. (More later/first chance I get.)

Hello Chris and Soulmate @Soulmate :-) you have a good heart :-) @Chris :-) I've been following your exchange with Soulmate, deep inside me, I know all will turn out well :-) I can see its bearing fruits <3 Soulmate has given you very good advice re: your Friday's meeting. I'll like to add just one sentence: Take slow, quiet, deep breaths to stay calm. (12 Sept 2016 at 09:13) You wrote"......middle aged spacmo apart from a lady such as yourself....." I don't know the meaning of "spacmo " so I googled "spacmo" and I found this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n7x0_pktz3M Chris, Did you write this? I don't know music, so please bear with me, but this is how I feel when I listen through it. I feel.... It's two tiered. The back ground tune is stable like a rocking chair. Doesn't fail, won't break, assertive but not overly forceful. When the other instruments start, it seems to tell me,(0:33) shh, listen up, (0:39)pay attention, (1:07)here the story begin, surprisingly it's told in a gentle manner, as compared to the beginning (assertive). I like that (2:53)there's an ending to the story, or that the story is ending soon. And then life goes on (the background music only). To me, the song is... Mesmerizing:-) Lol.. I must be so off the mark, and I'm sure I just proved what I told you, I don't know music. But I enjoy music. Music makes me feel stories, music gives me vibrations. It's hard to explain. Let me try...When you feel cold, your body has a sensation. When you feel hot, your body has another kind of sensation. When I'm enjoying music, I have mild body vibration (my sensation:-)) Best blessings.

Dear Seen-Thru. You'll be truly yelled at if Soulmate catches you back on this thread - I'm pretty sure she thinks she's chased you off! I've answered as many of her questions as I can find but she hasn't gotten back to me on any of the answers so I'm not reading anything into that because that's the bit I'm not good at. Nope, I've never, ever put anything on YouTube in my life, never had the courage to, that's definitely nothing to do with me. It's 2am, I've had a long day full of travelling so I'll listen to it in the morning else I'll wake all the neighbours up! The reason I've not put any links to mine up is because as this thread is now Soulmate's prerogative, I thought she'd be cross if I put up links for you because she'd told you not to post on the thread. TBH I've no idea how to GET links to you and I don't know if you'll be posting an answer to this or if I'm going to be given a Royal Rollocking for answering you when you've been told not to be here or what's going to happen. Right now, I'm just trying to follow Soulmate's orders and get what she wants doing right, except I don't know if the fact she's not said what she thinks of my replies to her questions implies I've got the answers wrong or what. But that's definitely nothing to do with me, that track, sorry. Nothing on YouTube would be, I've always been far, far too ashamed of mine to put anything on there. If you can think of a way for me to give you links that's NOT, underlined and emboldened, going to offend Soulmate, I'll do it. Yours respectfully Chris.

Dear Seen-Thru. Sorry - I wrote the above before I realised Soulmate had given you permission to post - the 'click-thru' in the E_mail I got took me straight to your post, I didn't read Soulmate's above, I just thought 'WAAH! Soulmate's gonna MURDER me if I'm caught talking to Seen-Thru after Seen-Thru's been booted from the thread!' That's why I put the above. I still didn't write that track though! I'll give you my symphony (kinda!) if Soulmate gives me permission to give you the link. It's not on YouTube, it's on a Microsoft-owned file-sharing site so there shouldn't be any nasties lurking around it. Can also give you lots of other tracks, again with Soulmate's permission as this is her thread mainly. This question's kinda to both of you because I'm utterly mystified. How have I wandered off the point by miles? The answers to all the questions I found were as honest as I could make them, so surely - and this is NOT a 'dig' at anyone - if the answers were wrong, maybe the questions were wrong? I promise you, though, all the answers were honest, I didn't lie once, all the opinions I gave were truly mine own and so on and so forth! If you're allowed to tell me what I've misunderstood where, while Soulmate's otherwise occupied (a.k.a. too busy) then feel free to. But I promise you my answers to Soulmate's questions were honestly given. Yours respectfully Chris.

No, I would not be yelled at, Soulmate posted this on 13 Sept at 15:25 :-) SEEN-THRU, COULD I NOW PLEASE "UN-PAUSE" YOU FOR THE TIME BEING (re. continuing your prior conversations with Chris)? If I follow your train of thoughts... Here's what I feel.. Getting yelled at while trying to help a friend is "no sweat". And if my friend, you :-), are able to receive some help from me , say, feel an iota better about life or take one baby step forward and move on.. And that "getting yelled at" is the cost, it so worth it. "Or if I'm going to be given a Royal Rollocking for answering you..." Thank you for taking the risk, thank you for being nice and polite:-) @Soulmate :-) Is it fine if Chris put up his music on this site? This thread? A new thread? Comments from YouTube can be "cold". I'm sure he will receive honest and kinder comments from this community:-) 1) "far too ashamed of mine to put..." Allow him to start from here, and hereon, may his confidence blossom:-) 2) his music can help cheer the posters here :-) Not totally social, a big percentage in relation to "Peoplesproblem". I have high hopes that you'll say yes. On the other hand, a "no" would be just as respected. Chris, let's wait for Soulmate's Yes.. Or no.. then we will figure out the next step, ok... Take heart... There will always be a way! "So I'll listen to it in the morning" Do share with me what you think of that piece :-) Deep restful sleep...

Dear Soulmate. Thanks for your reply re. interview. I'm sorry if I misunderstood your questions but, as I said in the reply to Seen-Thru (above) I answered them all as honestly as I could. I did a search for question marks, copied'n'pasted all the questions into a Wordpad file, then went through them answering them all. Then I posted the whole thing here for you to read. I don't see what I've done wrong (again!) As far as the interview goes, it's for general support, not just music. I mean I'm 48, never had a decent job despite 16 good quals and trying for about a trillion of the things (and that's probably not QUITE as much of an exaggeration as it sounds, over the years!)and I'm very, very certain it's because employers see this wotizit shambling towards them in a suit, howl with laughter, give the wotizit a token interview so he can't say he was treated differently, then get on with the others. I've actually seen that happening to me without them realising I had the intelligence to see it happening. I'll carry out your instructions on that one though. I've also rarely if ever socialised, am terrified of most people - not always incase they bash me, sometimes incase I hurt their feelings by saying/doing the wrong things, that's - again being honest - the reason you scare me, I always seem to put my foot in it with you and never know why. Regarding 'throwing away the rulebook' - if you chuck out the rules, how do you know what to go by to know what to do in any given situation (if you understand that sentence, please explain it to me - just joking!) If you're gonna say 'gut instinct', I'm not too good at that. With me, it's 'gut-it-wrong-again instinct!' Absolutely straight question - if you've got to throw out the rulebook in situations, then why do people keep on electing governments to make laws (rules) so everyone DOES know what to do in situations? Confused. I'll leave it there. Today I've witnessed a suicide first-hand (guy chucked himself under a train which made my journey to see my supposedly 'mad' lady friend - and that's all she is! - even longer than usual. It's 3.38 now and I've only been in about an hour (ish!) I ACTUALLY HAD A KINDA CONVERSATION (don't faint) with an ex-Army guy who's hit hard times and is homeless, he dispelled a bunch of people who were trying to get money off me in London and I thought he'd done that so he could mug me but, to my surprise, he didn't. He talked to me about his life and took my phone number. Which I think in retrospect was a mighty mistake but never mind for now. Last thing - ADHD? Now I'm not saying you're wrong, just going to mention something. I know neither of you have heard my music because I've not been told whether or not it's OK to put up links to it yet, but here's how I write it. No loops. No downloaded shortcuts. On-screen notation paper, each staff a separate instrument, and notes as in manuscript notes. If you hear a thousand notes, that's a thousand mouse-clicks along with many hours of mixing, trying out effects, re-mixing, rewriting (parts that sound like Mozart when you write them have an unfortunate habit of sounding more like Baa-Baa-Black-Sheep an hour or two later!) until I know the thing's as ready as I can make it. Even though I say so myself, that takes concentration. Not sure the results are WORTH it, but it does take concentration. I have to FORCE myself to do the concentration, but I do do it. I've re-read my answers to your questions and stand by them, on the whole. Which does NOT mean my mind can't be changed - it's not immovable - it's just at my present state of knowledge I stand by them all. If you alter my knowledge, I might well alter the answers accordingly. Chris.

Chris, 1. Again (again, again, again), I just don't have the time/have got too many other things to do to respond to your question-finding exercise and the high volume and content of your responses, but, just for now, if it helps - you got the exercise more 'right' than you did 'wrong'. What you did 'wrong' was forget that I'd asked you not to answer them and instead just list them out. But never mind, that bit really doesn't matter; truth is, there wasn't any getting it right or wrong, I JUST SIMPLY wanted to see how many questions you could spot, i.e. get a feel of the extent of your Dyspraxia. (You could have ADHD *or* you could just be finding it hard to keep focus, concentration and short-term memory out of over-enthusiasm. I just suspect you might (because, one, I'm used to it and, two, because it's a common co-morbidity with ASD).) 2. You can provide any links, just as long as whatever they lead to doesn't provide your real-life identity and location (because that's against forum rules of conduct when the forum has a responsibility towards its users by way of keeping them safe whilst they're posting on here). 3. Just out of interest: I'm not sure why, when I've told you no-one around here knows my gender, you insist on referring to me as 'she'. Could you refer to me as 's/he' in future, please? Thanks. 4. Nobody has yelled at you - not even once - including me. Nor is anyone going to. So there is no 'risking it' to begin with. Feel free to relax and chat any way you like with Seen-Thru (and anybody else).

Dear Soulmate. You said at one point there was a Mr. Soulmate, so logically that makes you the Mrs. Soulmate, so logically that makes you a 'she'. But I'll use the / if you want me to. I'm not too sure - in fact I'm even more puzzled than I was - firstly how, if you hadn't expected answers to the questions, you'd know I hadn't originally read them. And secondly why, if you hadn't wanted answers, were you cross that I hadn't seen them. And thirdly why, if you hadn't wanted answers, had you asked them in the first place? How was I supposed to realise they were ALL rhetorical? Fourthly, just so I know for the future, how to I tell what's rhetorical and what's not? Are all your questions ALWAYS going to be rhetorical, so you don't really want answers to any of them, or is there some sort of clue I'm supposed to pick up on as to which ones are rhetorical and which ones aren't? I get this a lot in real-life situations as well - why is being enthusiastic a crime? I could give you a load of examples but one recent(ish) one is I was in a vol. centre and was given a pile of computers to sort out. I started the moment I got in and had most of them sorted by lunchtime (as in those that weren't now carcasses gutted for spares were working using XP.) I got royally hauled over the coals because apparently - I hadn't been told this - there was a boss-volunteer coming in to help me in the afternoon and I hadn't left enough to do to fill the afternoon up. So why hadn't they just said 'only fix the first 4 and leave the rest till the afternoon' or something like that? That last is rhetorical, by the way, if you want it to be. The others are puzzle-points - I think TBH engendered by the fact you'd not explained WHY you wanted the questions found so I assumed because you wanted them answered, which seemed a logical assumption, I apologise that it wasn't. And I apologise for being eager and wanting to do the right thing and wanting to do what you/others wanted. You tell me how much/what I have done wrong and I'll correct my attitude accordingly. Chris. BTW, and this is an OBSERVATION, NOT a dig, the site captcha could do with ditching and using another one - this one's using a set of character groups over and over again, I'm sure I've seen most of the 'Please enter....' red-letter bunches before.

Dear Soulmate. Just one line. I'm verbose because I'm trying to do the best I can, don't want to be misunderstood, don't want to be thought of as 'that stupid spazmo who always gets it wrong' so I suppose I overdo trying to get it right. I DO try my best at things in Life, always have done, it just don't seem to work, do it! OK, three lines, sue me.... Chris.

Reply to your post: 14 Sept at 03:25 "I've high hopes that you'll say yes.." Hi Soulmate :-) I said it once, but I'll have to say it again. You're the best ! <3 Thank you :-) Hi Chris :-) Soulmate has given the "go ahead". So take your time and do your thing. Remember to enjoy the process. Share your music with love and confidence. Some may like it, others may not... Bearing in mind "one man's meat is another man's poison". When you share with love and confidence, you will have no fear... of criticism because with the right attitude, you will 'stand back' and see if the comments are constructive or not. If they are constructive, thank them. If they are not, don't take it personally (...another man's poison), thank them anyway :-) So... Awaiting your music :-) ------------- "This question's kinda to both of you because I'm utterly mystified. How have I wandered off the point by miles?... Yes, I believe you are honest in all your answers. You've gone through a lot in life, so many, so many short stories even though you're 48, you've got more stories than a 84-year-old:-) And you're a passionate and descriptive writer. I've noticed that you might be answering a question, in the midst, while doing it, you shared a short vivid story, true story, very descriptive. There's nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong <3 The thing is... that each post is lengthy, embedded are many questions. Let's just say... with every question, you gave your answer with a story, then another question-another answer-another story, and the next and the next... Soon you'll be lost. Anyone would be :-) ALSO... While telling your stories, you may have become emotional (I'm guessing this). When one is emotional, one is not in the best of condition to think deeply or write simply to the point..... misunderstanding arises. Do you agree? A gentle reminder... Have you heard "my accidental discovery" the spacmo music? The YouTube link is at my post on 13 sept 18:00 I'll like to hear what do think it. Hm... Only if you wish :-) Have fun (with the music...) ps. Life experience, painful episodes, I choose to use "story" Not making light of, but not much use reminding and feeling the pain all over again. Does that resonate with you?

Chris, (First off, re 'she': Ah, yes, but...I could be a homosexual male, could I not? ;-) But thanks for explaining your reasons. I just didn't want anyone else to see you repeatedly addressing me so gender-specifically so seemingly confidently as to take it as being acceptably common knowledge.) Secondly,... '[So] sue me'? Why would I sue you?? Oh, dear... I'm really sorry, Chris, but I can't help someone whose mind, through lack of a frame of reference to put me in, keeps bouncing between insisting on making me out to be some kind of monster, constantly out to get them, and, basically, all this mutual having to apologise all the time. Your overall demonstrations of your attitude towards me, whether unintentional or not or because it feel s'safer' than puzzlement or not, have been so offensive and insulting, that anyone less patient and tolerant than me, the type who did take things personally, would have thrown their hands up in defeat long* before today. Me, I just can't any longer abide a situation where I feel as if I'm effectively banging my head again and again against a brick wall. Futile, in other words. I don't have time for the luxury of having to explain in huge detail why I've said something and what I meant as opposed to not, and then having to explain THAT explanation and clarification attempt...and so on and so forth, repeatedly from there...all to no avail. For example, I did already make crystal-clear why *at that precise moment only/just for now* I wanted you solely to find and paste in the questions; I can't do any more than that, Chris. Let's be brutally honest, you don't trust me or the fact that my intentions are good, whatsoever. Not on any level. Maybe it's my fault, in that, my manner's just too brusque and businesslike for you?...perhaps reminds you of your bullies?...for example, all I said this time was 'high volume and content' - a simple, factual observation (to do with the time it warranted from me in responding to it, time that I haven't currently got) with zero feelings or attitude attached to it, let alone negative. And yet even that perfectly innocent comment has been taken as some sort of critical and disapproving attack missile. So I think it's *beyond* clear at this juncture that I can't win whatever I do or don't do, now. (Basically, I feel like a hospital doctor that's trying to examine you and inject you with medicine but where I can't even get close enough to you with the hypodermic because you're either eyeing me with negative suspicion or struggling and/or as far as kicking your legs and hitting out with your arms to stop me from approaching, as if you believe it contains Strychnine. Again, at other times, or simultaneously - by your own admission - I at best just keep puzzling you.) I haven't, however, been CROSS with you even once. And nor have I taken anything you've said/done as a deliberate and intentional 'dig' at me. You won't believe me when I say that, I know now that you won't. But *I* know it's the truth, and I'm okay with only my knowing it. That this hasn't worked out between us is probably no-one's fault or cause (bar how your dad and your past bullies treated you (and theirs before them....ad nauseam), and, now, in addition, the typically difficulty-making nature and distance of the ether where concerns clear enough communication)....it's just the way it is... a case quite possibly of our respective wavelengths being too different for you to be able to understand, appreciate or trust where I'm coming from. But it's all too patently got to the point where the survivalist portion of your mind has pigeonholed me, cemented me there, locked the pigeonhole, and thrown away the key...in which case, my participation in this thread isn't doing you any good AT all (nor certainly myself, in light of the fact I barely have time lately to scratch my nose... just - everybody wants a piece of me lately, in real life as well as on here, and I'm starting to get over-stretched. I have to put my own oxygen mask on first so that I'm fit to help others on with theirs). You feel free to carry on using this thread to chat to Seen-Thru. She, you do trust (bless her!). And that's what you need when it comes to getting in some good practise at positive interaction - someone you can trust is not out to make life difficult for you or doesn't constantly puzzle you. Even with mere friends and helpers, it has to be, Right Person, Right Place, Right Time. I'm the wrong person in the right place ...at the wrong time. I would recommend, however, that you make an appointment to see your GP, to explain to him/her everything that's been happening for too long and how you feel about it, and request / let him/her 'prescribe' a referral to a counsellor that specialises in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (to help train you OUT of those ways you've been for too long primed into by said bullies). No hard feelings on my part *whatsoever*....and by the way, I think your poetry is *EXCELLENT* and you should continue with it with a view to trying to get it published or bought as song lyrics...I just [all together now] didn't have time in with everything else going on, to say so - sorry about that failure on mine and my schedule's part, too). I write poetry too, btw, and have been published, and more than once (competition wins) so...there you go, my opinion probably counts. :-) Please do make that GP appointment, I think your 'salvation' lies that way, not this/me. So don't think of this as someone giving up so much as someone providing the catalyst when it comes to (with the aid of inconvenient timing and events all coming to a head at once) shunting you onto a much smoother and more efficient train-track. :-) Maybe Fate only wanted me to be your 'final straw' so as to motivate you to get to the doc's? Or maybe it has bigger/better plans for you and is about to 'drop' something life-changing and -bettering onto your path, but where I/you and I interacting would now be in the way? Probably. That's usually how life works. Just never feels good at the time, that's all. But watch that space. :-)

(Sorry, Seen-Thru, wasn't ignoring you, I didn't realise you'd posted in the interim because, what with the biz phone constantly going, etc. ("aaargh!"), I had my message stuck, ready to finish and post, for hours. No, as I've said, I think *you're* the best. Certainly for Chris. :-))

Hi Soulmate :-) I'm mindfully that you are extremely busy yet may I sincerely hope that you will reconsider... Chris trusts you and he knows your intentions are good, that is shown in how he is trying his best to co-operate with you: "You tell me how much/what I've done wrong and I'll correct my attitude according." Thank you. ---- "ST, wasn't ignoring you..." No worries, didn't cross my mind :-)

ps ".... accordingly."

pps I'm mindful that... Gosh. Lol..

Dear Soulmate. I'm so sorry you think I've been offensive to you, I've never meant to be. I've answered all your questions as best I could, I always look forwards to seeing a response notification in my IN-box because I hope it's you and you're going to help me understand what I'm doing wrong. I do trust you, that's why I've done everything you've asked me to do. Seen-Thru's an unknown quantity, I'm not sure if I trust her or not. But you I do trust, I just seem to be good at getting the wrong end of the stick. Which isn't just you, I seem to do that with everyone. That's why I ask for clarification, to make sure I'm not doing it wrong. Like answering all those questions when you just wanted them listed, I didn't realise you just wanted them listed, I thought you'd wanted them found and answered. Feel free to disregard the answers, did I find all the questions? I DO trust you and that your intentions are good. I'm just constantly worried about not getting your instructions right. That's why I ask you things, to make sure I'm doing things right. I had no idea you thought I was being offensive, I certainly never meant to be and that's upsetting to me - how was I being offensive? I did the best I could in answering everything (even though it turned out you didn't want any answers) and doing everything you've told me to do (if I've missed out any 'real-world'instructions, tell me and I'll look for them and obey them.) The 'dig at you' bits were only because I seemed to be misunderstanding you and what you were saying and if I gave the wrong answers, I didn't want you thinking I was 'having a go' at you, because I didn't want to damage our relationship. I in no way wanted to sound offensive, I never mean to sound offensive to anyone, if for no other reason than with a large group of people - not including yourself - if you offend them you get banged. So you're constantly on a knife's edge with them NOT offending them. I just didn't want you to think I was misunderstanding you on purpose or anything. As you're in business, you obviously know how to talk to people and that's what I'd love to learn from you. I know I had my own shop but 'business dealings' were really just selling stuff to customers (New Age customers, so healing oils etc., won't do the whole list!) making notes about what they'd love to be able to buy from me, finding suppliers that would let me have small amounts of stuff at decent prices and having the stuff for them by next visit. There wasn't really any 'chatting' involved. The record label bit was looked after by a lovely lady who could argue sense into all the bands, there was a guy who did the mixing who never used to say much - just turn up, mix tracks, have loads of cups of tea and go home again. And my partner, who ran off with all the money. (Business partner, not personal partner.) 'So sue me' isn't a serious statement, it has no serious meaning, it's the kind of thing one says when he hasn't QUITE been able to keep to what s/he said - like putting in an extra line of text. It's a throwaway remark without meaning and I wish I'd thrown it away before I used it. I meant nothing whatsoever by it. I do, however, totally believe you when you say you weren't taking anything I'd said as a dig and I'm relieved by that, because I never meant anything to be taken that way. I want to learn from you because I trust you. I don't trust counsellors, I've had several and they're jokes, CBT or otherwise. Why? Because the word 'counsel' means to give professional help and advice to (someone) to resolve personal or psychological problems - "he was being counselled for depression" or to recommend a course of action - "the athlete's coach counselled caution" And what is it counsellors NEVER do - give advice. They always want ME to see that bit for MYSELF and I never, ever have done. I've had counsellors virtually having apoplectic fits trying to get me to see things that were dead obvious to them and I just was NOT seeing it. They'd waste session after session trying to get me to see Step One when they should have just told me what it was, I'd've gone 'Okay then, I'll do that, what's Step Two?' Better still, why not just give me a list of the steps, I'd do them, report back on any probs. I'd had with any of them, they tell me what I'm doing wrong, when I can get through the entire list without hitting problems I'm cured, no? I've not pigeonholed you as anything bad. I was just scared of losing your trust. I was overly verbose because I was trying to be as honest as possible so you knew you could trust me. I suppose it shows how far I have to go that everything I did to gain your trust just lost me it, I had no idea. But then I never do. That's why I spend my life hiding from people when I flat would rather be with them - if only I knew how to do it! Last bit - I'm a little nervous of you for sure - wait for it! - in the same way I'm always a little nervous of my sister who's also a businesswoman, she runs an art business, I've often asked if I could help her out with it even voluntarily but she's got a real 'thing' about disability/illness and won't even let me anywhere near the place. (She's got new premises and I've no idea where they are!) She hasn't let me go and see her or Mom for years even though they still talk to me on the phone. If I pigeonhole you as anything, can I pigeonhole you as my teacher? Showing my not-good-till-I-get-a-coupla-lessons music off's one thing, but learning about how to approach people properly's much more important and something I know you can teach me. I'm just so gauche, as you've discovered, I've sent you all the wrong messages without meaning to. I'm sorry I jumped the gun by answering the questions. Disregard the answers. I do trust you, tell me what frame of reference I may use for you and that's the one I'll use. I don't honestly see, which is prob. my fault, what else I've missed out on doing that you've asked me to do but I'll accept you're not going to be cross with me and say that if you give me a shopping list of instructions, I'll carry them out. And I'll try to ONLY do what you tell me and not take it upon myself to do anything else (like unnecessary answers to lists of rhetorical questions!) And thankyou very much for liking my poems and actually believing I wrote them - THAT means a LOT! I've had a local poetry group refusing to believe I wrote them so I've given up going for the moment, I don't know how to prove I don't download them from somewhere and change them around a bit. I'd love to read your competition-winning ones. If I assure you I've not pigeonholed you as anything scary and will only do what you tell me and nothing above-and-beyond, can you teach me the next bit? I'd love to show you another one of my poems, too, one I'm actually proud of! Yours respectfully, for I DO respect you, I'm just gauche beyond belief, far more so than anyone else of my age I've met. Chris.

Dear Soulmate and Seen-Thru. For starters, have the link to a (sorta!) symphony: http://ovh.to/HsLbWZ9 What should happen is you'll get a buff-coloured screen which says 'LOADING...' up the top and after a few seconds you'll see a file called 'Symphony for the New Age' appear, click on it and you should be able to download it. I'm quite pleased with that one, I wrote it for a lady I wanted to say THANK YOU to but she never spoke to me again after I gave it to her so I guess I got that one wrong too. Can one of you two tell me how an answer here SHOULD be? Seen-Thru's explained I was too lengthy in my answers, that was just because I didn't know what the problem was - still don't know how to make people respond better to me despite re-reading all the posts here, I know Soulmate's said s/he'll explain friendships to me when the time's right - which I hope is soon, all this loneliness and jeering/teasing from others virtually daily is beginning to wear me down a bit - but I honestly, strange though it may sound, think I need an example of an Ideal Answer so I know how to couch mine. Then I'd happily go through the thread re-answering all the questions the right way, so you and Soulmate get the right amount of information. As of now, I don't know what's too little, what's too much, what's correct. Yours in friendship always, I never mean to hurt anyone, I just always seem to, don't I? Maybe, as I said in one of the answers, the Jehovah's Witness was right and us spazzes are the Devil's children, that's how come we elicit the responses from God's children we do. I sure didn't want to be the Devil's child but maybe that's what I am. I sure seem to cause dissension all over the place, don't I! Not just here, everywhere else I go. There's peace till I get there, I try the best I can to do what I'm told, dissension breaks out, I'm booted. That, hopefully succintly, is why I came here. If you two'd rather I left, I guess I will. But I didn't mean to cause problems. I justwanted to have friends. Yours, Chris.

Dear Chris :-) Thank you for moving on and thank you for the music. I will listen to it right after this. Like I said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with lengthy answers. We know where you came from. You have alot going on, so its very understandable. It's just that while writing along, you might get "lost" in the questions and answers, and therefore missed out answering Soulmate's questions.:-) --------- "I don't know what's too little, what's too much, what's correct." When you are interacting with someone: .... common discussion/ viewpoint.... Sometimes we just listen and nod in agreement / indication of 'I hear you' Sometimes they ask a question, we give our answer, gently, in a 'giving' manner. Sometimes we ask a question, when answered, if we feel confused/unclear, we say so and hope it'll be explained. Sometimes when we don't agree with the answers, it's ok. (don't insist who's correct, who's wrong) Be gracious, let them be correct, knowing that we are not wrong. Example 1 Brother : Why didn't you let the dog out? Sister: What do you mean why didn't I let the dog out? ! Brother: Just answer my question and don't answer a question with a question! Sister: I want to know what do you mean by your question! Each and every day I was the only one........ Example 2 Better interaction Brother: Why didn't you let the dog out? Sister: I did. I let it out this morning. Brother: I just stepped on its poop!!! There's no right or wrong. In example 1, sister felt accused, therefore upset. Plus her history of doing the job everyday gives her a sense of unfairness, maybe she's thinking why must I be the one doing it. If the question is phrased "Did you..." It still may spark indignation. "What do you mean did I let the dog out?! Who is the one letting the dog out each and every single day........" In example 2, sister's attitude- no guilt, no shame, no judgement- with a gracious disposition, she answers the question peaceably. --------- Jehovah's Witness...Prohibits blood transfusion... When we see someone in a drain, we stretch our hand, we hope to pull him out of the drain. Maybe we're not strong enough, but we will try. If we fail in our attempt, we call for help, we stay by him, to let him know someone cares enough to keep him company till help arrive. Or Do we kick him further, deeper down the drain. ------ Do not take heed of any remarks/comments that tear you down. Protect yourself, protect your peace. ------ If I fall, let me fall Like a leaf, gracefully :-)

Chris, I clicked on the link you provided, but the only thing I see is a blank page with a blue border on the top, with "hubic" on the top-right. I tried a few times, same outcome.

Oops ...with "hubic " on the top-left.

Dear Seen-thru and Soulmate. When I tested it, it said 'LOADING....' for a few seconds up the top before the download link of the file actually appeared, but it DID get there. OK. I'll try a new upload site - not a dodgy one, believe it or not there are clean ones out there! I'm sorry that link was a bit slow. OK. I've now put it onto 4Shared, I've tested the link with me signed OUT (incase it only works when the owner of the file's signed IN!) and it led me to an instant page where the track played right away and after a few seconds a blue DOWNLOAD banner link appeared down the bottom of the screen. I'm more used to E_mailing people tracks than putting them up online - and no I'm NOT fishing for an E_mail addy, just explaining m'self! http://www.4shared.com/mp3/svaXtSGJba/LANDR-Copy_of_Symphony_for_the.html I know it's not good. None of my stuff is. I couldn't mix a jelly with Gordon Ramsay holding a Uzi to my head. That's why I'm trying to get lessons! OK. Re. your lovely description of what an answer SHOULD be - I'll now go and re-shape all the answers I gave into that format and re-upload them, along with the questions which I thought I was answering at the time, OK? Then you can ignore the old answers and just use the new ones. Is that the right thing to do? (If not, just say 'NO! Do this instead...' and I will. I AM trying to learn, honest! It's just I've not had a lot of people contact in the last thirty years or so and I've got a bit of catching up to do. Tell me if the new link works for you. If not, I've got a third site lined up - why I didn't use it straight off is because it tends to be a bit of a pop-up generator. 4Shared seems to be clean as far as ads. go (OK, the occasional odd one down the side but at least you're not hitting 25 popups before you get anywhere!) And here's where this post stops! Chris.

There is no "LOADING". A blank page with "hubic" on top-left. ------ 4shared Everything should-be is on the page :-) with a white "play" arrow. *hopeful and smiling* I clicked the "arrow". Nothing happens. I noticed right below the arrow... 00:00 / 00:00 which I think it means nothing is in there. If something is in there, it'll be like: 00:00 / 01:33 or 00:00 / 02:15 :-) this is where opportunity knocks on our door :-) An opportunity to learn patience:-) we'll practice patience and perseverance:-) Good that you have a third site waiting. ------ "I know it's not good. None of my stuff is." Chris, will you tell anyone, "None of your stuff is good." I don't believe you will. So, don't tell it to yourself. It's a virtue to be humble but not good to be harsh. Please don't be harsh with yourself. This is a quite common trait though. Practice loving kindness. Yes, start with yourself :-) Be kind to yourself <3 ----- The questions were posted by Soulmate. Let's hope she makes her rounds and come back here to attend to your answers (if you re-post them) The one and only thing left hanging for me is your comments on the music on YouTube link - spacmo, but I did mention, "only if you wish". So all is well. One question. When you approach a group, do you ask.. "Do you guys mind if I join in?" Or "Hey...What's up?" What is the first thing you say? Peace within :-)

Hi Chris I just got home from my friend's place.. Using my friend's computer, I managed to listen to your music (hubic). Your music is beautiful!!!! My friend said so too :-) In fact, we both agreed it's so good it can be used in movies! Do consider putting it up on YouTube. Don't bury your talent. Put it up...share it...

Dear Seen-thru and Soulmate. Thing IS - when I test the 4-shared link it works for me. But it doesn't work for you. As I'm not at your computer I can't find out why it's not working for you, that's one of the annoying facts of computing! I can't put it up on YouTube because YouTube's videos and even if it's one picture you have to encode the whole thing with the picture which is something I've never done before and would prob. have to take a couple of tries or more to get right! OK. Here's TWO Mediafire links. They're different. The first one's a new piece I wrote specially for you and Soulmate this morning. And the second one's the Symphony. https://www.mediafire.com/?1motl2h3wp02jb8 http://www.mediafire.com/download/793p4994pn49vkr/Symphony_for_the_New_Age%281%29.mp3 You're right, I've got to listen to that piece of trance by Spacmo and I'll do so when I get back in! As far as approaching groups goes, it's not something I've had the courage to do for many years. Their first reaction is usually 'Whaddya want, ya f'in ugly spacmo?' or words to that effect. Either that or they're all nice and smiles until they get you on your own - then they take everything off you. Been down that street many times. I've tried saying 'Whassup?' or similar but you get the same look then you'd give something you'd scraped off your shoe, put there by a very large dog. And I've been booted from places for simply LOOKING at groups! So if you can give me an idea HOW to get to walk up to a group without it being roughly equivalent to a fox walking up to a pack of hungry hounds, feel free to share it! I'll re-answer the questions when I get back as well, even though Soulmate said she wanted them enumerated only, not answered (I still don't see why she asked them if she didn't want answers. Straight question for you. Why would she ask so many rhetorical questions? I mean at one point she said I missed them all, then she said she didn't want them answered anyway - I'm confused dot com!) I'm ending this one here cos I've got to put your track on a CD and hope it gets me into music mixing class! Yours in friendship Chris. If neither of those links work, I've got another idea as well, don't worry. It's Mediafire, they're pretty safe usually.

Dear Chris Mediafire is good! The response is immediate. I get to hear both the pieces:-) Although I've heard the symphony at my friend's house, I listen to music it again :-) The new piece you wrote for Soulmate and me...It puts a smile on my face as I listen. It's very sweet.. very soothing.. The background music is floating, velvety and the melody is clear, clean, makes me think of the color - ivory. Enchanting! Shall we call this piece "Friendship "?:-) ---- Approaching groups. I think it's the culture...giving less allowance to the disadvantaged... Your post on 11 sept at 09:36 - you mentioned a day care center. "I don't want to get banned from the day care center..." Interpersonal relationships can be sensitive. 1) When you offered the staff help, with her typing, she moved away. If we are quick to judge, one of the things we'd probably say would be that she should have given you a chance then she'll see you can actually be her good helper. We'd probably conclude that she didn't "accept" you. 2) while you were there, you met some other people: "...there was one person extolling... another person making animal noises.. a lady in her sixties... a guy who was being very loud.. a girl called Catherine......" It's very commendable that you made an effort to interact with each of them. But two things are missing. Time and patience. Anywhere at all, when you're new at that place, give yourself time. To let others get to know you. And to let yourself get to know others. Some people look like gangsters but they have the kindest heart. Some timid looking yet they are in prison for murder. To apply: Reference to no. 1) Let others get to know you = let the staff get to know you. Time will tell (them) you are highly intelligent, you're a fast typist, you're a musician, you're a willing helper.....and that you're harmless. Reference to no.2) Let yourself get to know others = give yourself time, give them time....acceptance. Are you willingly to accept them? Are you willing to accept them as your friends. Are you willing to: Give the "one person" a chance and another chance and another chance.. Or Give "another person" a chance and another and another Or Give "a lady" a chance and another and another.. Or Give "a guy" a chance and another and another.. And so on... You will not get banned from the day center if you bring love and patience with you:-) By and by, years later, you will be love and patience :-) ------ "Straight question for you. Why would she..." Dear Chris, I'm sorry I cannot answer this question. It's not polite to talk behind a person's back. Sincerely, with love

ps I forgot to thank you for the music. Dear Chris, thank you for the music. A wonderful piece! <3

Dear Seen-Thru. Of course you're absolutely right, I shouldn't have asked you to talk about another person behind their back, put that down to brain-freeze! It's just Soulmate wasn't around and s/he and I seem to be constantly misunderstanding eachother anyway.... I'm going to tell you something odd about me that might make me seem (even more) like a Martian - I'm not good at, for want of a better phrase which no doubt you can tell me, 'placing' people. It's sorta along the lines of pigeonholing but not quite the same - when you, as in you personally, look at someone I bet you have a little message to yourself 'That one looks dodgy.... That one's safe....' That kinda thing. Thing IS - to me EVERYONE'S scary for awhile! I know this is an over-reaction, I even know why I do it - it's because I misunderstand people or misunderstand what they want or they tell me to do something and the whole thing's obvious to them but not to me and they're gone before I really understand what they want me to do.... So I overdo things just to make sure I don't UNDER-do them, hence overly-verbose responses! I always think that over-doing things at least shows willingness, if I do just the amount I THINK they want and UNDERDO everything then they're going to think I'm lazy/unenthusiastic/stupid or whatever. I've even had this problem in voluntary jobs - the boss says, for example, 'Polish the furniture' (second-hand furniture warehouse) and I'll just keep on going till the lot's done. Then I'll get bawled out for not being available for the next job, I'll say I was still polishing furniture as instructed and he'd say 'I only meant until tea-break. You know you get given different stuff at tea-break.' Chances are I wouldn't even have stopped for a teabreak! Thing IS - the boss thinks I do it to get out of doing other work. If I stop when I THINK the boss wants me to stop, he thinks I'm skiving so I can't win either way. Hence the overdoing of things. Thanks for liking the music. I'm about to redo the questions now. On one proviso. And I'm not sure if this comes under the 'talking behind backs' thing or not so you'll have to tell me. I am confused dot com a bit. Originally, Soulmate told me off for not answering her questions. Then when I DID answer them, albeit overdoing it, she said she hadn't wanted them answered, only listed. If I answer them AGAIN, even if according to your guidelines, and this is the bit I'm not sure counts as behind backs or not, is that going to make her think I'm still not listening to her or not? I really don't know the answer to that one so if you don't feel you can answer it, just tell me at least if redoing the questions is a good idea or not. I'm perfectly willing to do it, and I'm perfectly willing to learn from Soulmate. The 'Chris hasn't been listening to me' bit was just the beginning of the learning curve - I know I'm not good at understanding implied instructions as fast as a large amount of others. I misunderstand for England and it comes out as disobedience/insubordination/whatever and it was never meant to. I'm going to redo them, but I'll let you or Soulmate tell me whether or not to post them. I trust you both equally, it was just my nervousness-amongst-new-people that threw me a bit at first. I'm meeting with a whole GROUP of new people to discuss personal support issues tomorrow and I'm more scared than an arachnophobe who's just been told the black widow she's looking after for a week isn't a lonely African lady after all... Thanks for liking your music! I'm doing you some more now. Chris.

".....just tell me at least if redoing the questions is a good idea or not." Dear Chris I will answer this question first, just in case you're waiting. It's Soulmate's prerogative whether or not, to answer. If you re-do them, do not expect anything, give it time. Just wait and see what happens. Do not have the attitude of "now I've done it, and nothing is happening!!" Instead, do it, if you wish, with the thought of finding out more, discovering more, what is the exchange all about, did you missed anything/what did you missed, what can I learn.... It is good to think fast (you mentioned your thoughts run faster than verbal) but not to your advantage to "jump into conclusion". Take your time to ponder. Sometimes... "Jump into conclusion =Jump into concussion " I hope I've helped clear the cobwebs :-) Sincerely

"...as in you personally, look at someone I bet you have a little message to yourself 'That one looks dodgy.... That one's safe....' That kinda thing." Hi Chris :-) Yes, I do. First impression. We take (only) one-tenth of a second to judge someone and make a first impression. I take note of it, I don't react on it. I Good or bad first impression, I take time to get to know that someone better. I give myself and that someone a chance. "To me EVERYONE's scary..." Our brain is a vault of memories. The things you've gone through in life, these memories, have "taught/nurtured/wired" you to be who you are today. How you think, how you judge, how you form conclusions, how you take, how you give... You've heard of... You think therefore you are You think scary thoughts (past experiences) therefore you're afraid. (EVERYONE's scary) Thoughts in our mind They can only add and multiply. They can never subtract nor divide. **Replace "bad" thoughts with "good" thoughts, as soon as you become aware / as soon as you catch yourself. It needs practice but it CAN be done. OVERDO/UNDERDO 'polish furniture' Now that you have experienced over-doing/under-doing. What did you learn from it? Embedded in every experience is a lesson. If we missed the lesson, it will present itself again, and again, until we learned it. Some people say "I've got all the bad luck." It's not that. There's something to learn from every experience. Passed it, aced it. And it will not happen again because the same thing may happen but how you handle it will be different, definitely. You may wish to ponder over this abit. I'm sure you will figure out how to, not overdo nor underdo. We can discuss this further, if you wish. Clarity and serenity :-)

"I'm meeting with a whole GROUP of new people to discuss personal support issues tomorrow and I'm more scared than..." New people Means New beginning New hope New opportunities New potential friends Don't scare yourself. Think positively. You may wish to take this opportunity to practice your skills, deep breathing to stay calm, don't be overly assertive, be slow to react to negative statements/views... You may also wish to get yourself mentally ready... A few minutes before the meeting, Sit still, close your eyes, do deep breathing exercise (4 counts in-breath, 5 counts out) Thoughts will zoom in, slow them down. Keep breathing deep and slow (counting your breaths =keeping it even, deep and slow) See if you can halt all your thoughts. or/otherwise Think of those that are positive/useful for the meeting Keep breathing, deep and slow.... This exercise is very calming. You can do it anytime... Yes, even now.:-) All the best for your meeting *double thumbs-up*:-)

Dear Soulmate and Seen-Thru. F'starters, here's the precis-ed version of the answers to all the questions. I've broken it up into pairs again, first the question, then the answer. Apart from one which I honestly couldn't carve down any further and still say what I wanted to say, all the others are now as short as I can make them, in some cases shorter than the questions! Tell me if I've got it right this time:- If you weren't facially different, SOME people would just find something ELSE to (cough!) react to. Get it? Er - no. And no I hadn't looked at it like that. I mean I see people walking along in groups all the time, perfectly friendly to eachother, not trying to find ways to mug eachother. I turn up and it's ''Scuse, they just wheelclamped your spaceship.' (Had you even looked at it like that?) No I hadn't, read the above answer for clarification. Life is a basic training army camp. If your exercise obstacle course features ruddy great mountains to climb where the mere grunts have just monkey bars and the like then - what does THAT tell you? Tells me you need a Sherpa Tensing to help you learn how to climb mountains, not just a sergeant-major to yell you over obstacles. Takes more training to climb a mountain than do monkey-bars, that's why people die on mountains every year. Oh, and also - what was the young blind woman like?...you know - she who doesn't even HAVE a face! Or anybody else's face for that matter! As in, "What's 'a face'?". If a face isn't 'as expected', the immediate reaction of the onlooker is 'Oh my God. It must be a monster. Maybe it's going to hurt me!' and they band together to protect themselves against the perceived threat, real or otherwise. (*SOME* humans!) (And, No, it's because it sounds a much more self-pity-servicing way to think because self-pitying drains you of energy and boxes you into paralysis as then lets your mind off the actions-taking hook.) Because, unlike you (yet), I'm very much plugged-in to what's going on outside of my head as equally as in, and what I noted he DIDN'T do was this: nothing. But what would be so wrong if it had been however much a case of her [I realise my earlier typo of 'he' - soz] seeing a BOGOF to be had, anyway? Surely the end result was what you three had been after? How do you think this blind woman would have felt if she'd cottoned on to the fact or got later informed that some bloke had rejected an introduction to her? I hope for her sake the poor woman (single, yes? - nuff said) didn't assume it was because she can't see or that, unbeknown to her, she's too unattractive? (Is that a "Gotcha!"?) I didn't really understand that paragraph when I read it the first time. 'BOGOF' is kid's slang for 'Bugger Off', no? So you're saying he was getting both of us to 'bugger off' on eachother, thus getting rid of two problems simultaneously! Which she - it's a lady named Tuppy Owens, google her, she was a porn star once - might well have been doing. If you think that's what she was doing, then fine, I'll take your word for it unreservedly. How's about you tell that matchmaker you've had second thoughts? I think you should - you sound absolutely fine to me, a perfectly articulate (what's more - EMOTIONALLY so...that's rare for a bloke [ducks rotten tomatoes]) and interesting gentleman with a lot of experiences that most people can't even conceive of, let alone imagine. I mean, you do realise you could write the most incredible autobiography? As for song lyrics - ...?! Either of those would solve TWO problems (- at least!) in one hit, wouldn't they? (Do you want to know how to write a book? What interesting experiences? Go out....avoid everyone....if you don't avoid them all you get mugged/lampooned (still hate comedy!) beaten up-for-fun.... go to Casualty if you've been hit harder than normal or go home again. What's interesting there? And I'd love to know how to write a book. (- telesales...from home - hello?) Yer-s-s-s, you have a point with that one, but it involves laying out large sums of money to buy dodgy goods in the hope of being able to ram them down unsuspecting people's throats using every psychological trick in the book. Do you think that's me? What's your GP doing about your situation, by the way? Has s/he not referred you to anyone or anywhere yet? Have you even asked? And what about the National Autistic Society (NAS)? What are they - chopped liver? You see, I notice things that *aren't* said as much as are. Are you a 'provide too much unasked-for information to distract from potentially uncomfortable queries' merchant? You DO jump to conclusions that while not 'wrong' per se, are totally not the conclusions I'm expecting. So I try to give you all the information I can so you can't misunderstand I didn't know about NAS until you told me about them. If I miss something because I think it's rhetorical and it SHOULD have been answered, then tell me. Why a DOCTOR? Surely it's more the province of a psych. - and they're expensive beasts! Besides, they never tell you anything because if they DID, they'd lose their cash-cow. Have you never even once thought about starting a campaign or, as a baby-step, a blog - to start the ball rolling in bringing about the very changes in attitudes you wish your average man on the street possessed (aside from the minimum and minority that gets bandied around in the media)? What are YOU? Again - chopped liver? What are you waiting for? SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT? Soulmate, who the hell would listen to a fat, middle aged spacmo apart from a lady such as yourself? I'm sorry I'm hard work, I guess I've a lot to learn and I am answering all the questions I've found on retrospect. Never mind that, S-T - we prefer cash! (although American Express will do nicely) LOL. No but, seriously, folk - thank-you very much for saying so. [Smiling] (I think it's Chris, actually; he's very inspirational, isn't he?) I'd like to think I am! I hope you pay better attention this time round?...you and your 'Yours respectfully'?) I'll try to. What about the Peter Pan Playground at Worthing? Is that a trap or not? You'd told me how wrong it was to want to watch kids, then you tell me somewhere to go to watch kids. If I jumped at the opportunity, that would prove to you I WAS a paedo, no? See? I DO think outside the box! (Is THAT a 'Gotcha'!?!) Don't you watch the telly or read the papers, Chris? Oddly enough I don't even possess a television. Just a computer. As far as reading papers go, I love the New Scientist, the Morning Star and - when it's not having a totally-up-itself day - the Manchester Guardian. So how was he supposed to know you were one of the GOOD (kid-watching) guys? Do you yourself sport a notice around your neck saying, 'Not a paedophile, just like innocently watching kids'? Try this. You're at a party. A guy smiles at you. Do you think 'He's gonna be friendly but he'll try it on if I let him' or 'WAAH! He might have Rohypnol - I'm off!' The father's reaction tended towards the second more than the first. Chopin - is he a favourite of yours? Chopin wrote stuff to show off his own skills more than to be played by others - he was kinda the Frank Mills of his day (Music Box Dancer was Frank's BIG hit but he wrote loads of gorgeous other stuff.) PS: Do you like Air and Bassomatic? Never heard of Air before you mentioned them but they're not bad, leetle 'funky' for me but at least they don't use vocals. Bassomatic - hell, YUCK! Some mulatto female singing - eesh - about 'fascinating rhythms'. 'You think getting mistaken for being RETARDED is my biggest problem? My answer to a recent, similar idiot was 'Nope, being retarded's fine. It's idiots like you who are my biggest problem!' THIS time I WON the fight. (SEE? Can win fights!) Did you ever see that little wheelchair-bound lad/comedian Jack in Britain's Got Talent? Isn't he clever, eh? NO - he's the EXACT AND PERFECT REASON why I hate comedy. He's encouraging able-bodied people to laugh at people in wheelchairs or who are disabled. So he's encouraging people to behave towards him as they behave towards me. So if you think he's funny you are, by inference, sanctioning everything that's been happening to me or many others in similar positions for decades. A coloured guy could go onstage, make exactly the same jokes about niggers and get a laugh for exactly the same reason - he's setting up his own kind to be laughed at. If it's racist then, it's racist about disabled people. Think of all the nasty 'smart' comments you've ever received or could ever conceive of receiving and formulate and practise in the mirror a perfect comedy retort or set of retorts for each. If it makes YOU giggle or gaffaw then you know you're onto a winner. Soulmate, you're more wrong on THAT one than I imagined you possibly COULD be. That would work if both were able-bodied. If one's disabled and retorts, the 'spastic's got one over on the able-bodied person. The only way for Able-bodied Guy to save face is to steam in on you and usually you're the one who gets the bruises. 10. Why does too much time on your hands 'scare you' when you're so multi-talented and could keep yourself occupied enjoyably for many more hours per time than 99.9% of the population? I'm usually too damned scared to go out. Idiot d/stairs kicks my door in - and Housing say if I give him reason to do that I'm at fault and will get made street homeless. If I go out, I get the hate from others of all ages. Example - I'm on a bus. It was stopping, I was swinging a bit like Tarzan from one of the overhead hand-holds - NOT intentionally, just because of the bus' momentum - and I nearly bumped into a woman going past me so I said 'Sorry!' and she rounded and went 'I don't talk to effin' retards like you!' And I suddenly noticed all the people on the bus were giving me little side-long looks, not one of them was speaking up for me and I felt very, very lonely. I got off the bus, went into the shopping centre, into the Gents', had a full-on panic attack/shaking fit in a cubicle for about ten minutes. Go home, Idiot's outside yelling 'Why should I have to put up with living with that fat retard?' Stay out - I'm always terrified wondering where the next attack's gonna come from. if God COULD keep disabled people from being born, first of all he wouldn't have a wad in Leviticus telling people to keep them away from him and secondly Jesus wouldn't have anyone to perform miracles on!" - High Five again for the latter, and re the former, you forgot again that Leviticus was written by HUMAN hand, not God's. Erm - I thought the whole point of the Bible was it's God's Word? You can't say the bits that don't 'chime right' are human additions and the bits that DO 'chime right' are God's Original Statements, that's cheating! OK, Soulmate and Seen-Thru, now all the answers bar one are shorter than the questions - do I have it right yet? If not, tell me and I'll have another go! And what do one of you think of the answers? Can I leave one question for you two? I got put on the long list for helping in the shop - and I'm terrified because it's been so long since I've mixed with other people I'm not sure how to do it - imagine you're invited onto the stage in a theatre. Everyone smiles at you, but you don't know what your role is, what the play's called, what your lines should be or even how you should be dressed for your part. That's me! Soulmate - you said you'd give me tips on making friends - I could sure do with them round about now so I have time to assimilate them before starting on this. Yours rabbit-in-headlightsly Chris.

Can I leave one question for you two? I got put on the long list for helping in the shop...I'm not sure how to do it.... Dear Chris Do you know yet, what duty you'll be assigned to? Generally when at work, you need to possess: Patience Attentiveness Clear communication skill Product knowledge Ability to use positive language A calming presence Willingness to learn ---- How was Friday's meeting? Cheering you on...

Dear Seen-Thru and Soulmate. For starters - were the answers to your questions better (shorter doesn't always = better!) Secondly - Friday was terrifying. There were a whole bunch of them that started off sounding angry - they always sound like that - but they just got angrier and angrier until normal conversation between them all sounded like the Conservatives in the House of Commons if Jeremy Corbyn was suddenly announced as the new interim Prime Minister! Their helpers were trying to calm them down but it was NOT helping... 'Calm? Excuse me, I AM BEING CALM.... Excuse me, I'm trying to talk to Sammy over here. You get back to your drink, you're my helper, you're NOT IN CONTROL OF ME! I can talk to who I like...' and they were ALL getting like that! Martyn, the guy I'm friendliest with, was just in fits of laughter at it all and had given up on his charge. The alcohol factor wasn't helping (why hold a meeting between a bunch of people on meds in a BAR!) Then the angriest - except that isn't really the right word. Most-intense is a better expression. The most intense lady spoke to me, her friend said something to her and she went 'Excuse me. EXCUSE ME, I will talk to WHOEVER I LIKE. I do NOT care what he looks like. Some of us do NOT judge a book by its cover....' Her friend whispered something else which I didn't catch. 'YOU don't HAVE to talk to him. If YOU are too PREJUDICED to talk to him, I am NOT!' And I got a full-beam smile which I found a tad disconcerting! And the others were looking between us, and one went 'Go on, Chris, I think you're pulling there, mate!' 'I am NOT talking to him on THAT BASIS!' she thundered 'And STOP YOUR LAUGHING!' I didn't know what to do, so I went to the bathroom. Came back and one went 'Hey, your boyfriend's back!' I cringed, the lady went 'Well, if you must be so juvenile... Martha.' Her helper. 'Martha, if you'd kindly SHUT UP, this MEETING will CONTINUE. Thank you.' I didn't know what Martha had been saying but the poor lady collapsed like a burst balloon! I left immediately after being told I was being considered as a helper, I flat didn't want to be in the middle of any more of those exchanges because they're exactly the sort of thing I'm hopeless at handling. They were all going 'Don't you want her number?' and I didn't know what to say/do so I just ignored the lot and left like I was rocket-propelled. If that's what working in a shop with these people's going to be like, it's going to be a once-a-week, minimum-time nightmare. I know they're joking but I have absolutely no idea what to do/say, what ripostes to have ready, how to use them, any of it. It feels like you're in an avalanche and the only protection you've got is an umbrella from the pound shop! How do you handle situations like that? Either of you? And do you think working in the shops is going to be like this? If it IS, how do I LIVE with it? It took me right back to being in the playground with all the other kids surrounding me. OK, I wasn't the only one 'getting it', but the ones giving it out realised I was the one who couldn't cope with it so I always became the main target. They were doing similar to eachother, but they knew how to respond to eachother's retorts. I flat didn't. So of course they realised that and I got the lot. Which sounds pathetic, I know, maybe I am. Can I show you a new piece of music, Seen-Thru, or have you had enough of my efforts? It's up to you! Chris.

Dear Chris :-) 1) music "had enough of my efforts?" Please do, I've ONLY heard two... 2) "were the answers to your questions better" Soulmate's questions to you... Kindly read my (short) post dated 16 sept 01:39 3) "Friday" I'm sorry. It must be really hard for you. We need to think to a way to counter this kind of situations. You went through this many, many times. Too many times. I was sharing this with another poster and I would like to share it with you too. "If you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting" A) "I left immediately after being told I was considered a helper"... An honest question, did you remember to thank them or was too embarrassed...? B) when they were joking, teasing, laughing.. Did you remember to breathe to stay calm? C)"don't you want her number?" "I didn't know what the say..." If something like that happen again, do you think you can give them an answer politely...like "No, it's ok, thank you." ( Why do you answer? Because they asked a question.) (but they were teasing! Yes, but you see, it's a question, so plainly give an answer. Then, end of story) that's how you handle it. D)"how to handle situations like that" the "joking, teasing, laughing" situation is bound to happen again. Will you consider this: They laugh at me because I'm different I laugh at them because they're all the same. (How are they the same? They can't handle the fact that you are different) Do you see Chris? You're not the only one who can't handle situations like that. They can't, too! It is the time to build self confidence. Your disability is only one facet of you. It is important to allow yourself to view your disability as one component of your life, not the only component. i) maximize positives, minimize negatives ii) focus more on abilities, less on limitations iii)Do not over-generalize. If there is something that you cannot do as a result of your disability, it is not fair to conclude that you are an overall failure. There are many things that you can do. Don't tie all of your self-worth to any one attribute or event. Just because you might be a lousy cook does not mean that you are a lousy person in general. iv) give yourself respect, think and be a gentleman. In order for the magic of life to happen: First, love yourself: brush, wash, neat haircut, fresh clean clothes, eat healthily, drink more water. First, be kind to yourself: don't blame yourself, don't blame others. (Yes, don't blame others because you're unhappy when you blame others. So in this way, you're not being kind to yourself) If I think like a beggar and be like a beggar, people will throw me pennies. If I think like a gentleman and be like a gentleman, will people throw me pennies? Cheering you on <3

Dear Seen-thru. Looks like it's just us two at the moment, I seem to have hurt Soulmate's feelings too much for her to want to talk to me and I didn't want to do that. Secondly yes, I did breathe to stay calm but I just felt I was being attacked from all sides. I was hoping the others' carers would calm them down but they didn't, they seemed to be laughing WITH them if anything, which meant they were against me too, didn't it? Thirdly, I always wash/dress as best I can but I don't have much in the way of clothes because they cost too much and by the time I've paid off Internet, bought a bit of food, paid off water rates, electricity and stuff I'm usually broke anyway. What if I'M focused on my positives but THEY'RE focused on my negatives and they're in the majority? I KNOW the joking/teasing/laughing thing will happen again. That's what terrifies me. Why do you think I avoid others (even though part of me doesn't want to?) If you were a chicken, how many times would you seek the company of foxes before thinking maybe it's not such a good idea!?! And there's another way of looking at your last two sentences. 'If I think like a beggar and act like a beggar, people give me stuff. Maybe only small amounts, but it's something. If I think like a gentleman and act like a gentleman, nobody gives me anything, not even an opportunity, and will prob. want to take it all away from me.' Personally, I DO view my disability as only one component of my life. Thing IS, to many others it's the most NOTICEABLE component of my life, therefore the one most worthy of ridicule. I don't ridicule it, they do. And THEY'RE disabled THEMSELVES! It's not me personally doing the tying, it's the able-bodieds. If you're able-bodied and make a mistake it's a learning curve. If you're a spazz, you shouldn't have been allowed to do it in the first place. What the main prob. in my life is, apart from fear, is terminal boredom. I'm fairly intelligent (believe it or not!) but I don't get to do anything I can use that fact on. I get put with people doing bags of pegs/sticking pictures in books/ being praised for colouring-in pictures (believe it or not, that's the latest thing they give me!) and then they say the computer's broken down, which is my bag, so I offer to fix it and get firmly guided away from it. And a guy comes in and does for money what I would've done for free. In fact, the guy - it's always the same one - got stuck once so I talked him through doing it right! He got paid, I felt a little more vindicated. But usually I'm flat bored, I've written music, I've checked Internet, I've tidied flat, girlfriend's 150 miles away and I'm only allowed to see her once a week anyway (we BOTH hate that but it's the rules of where she's living, her father gets 10 hours officially and never ever sees her, I get 4 and want to see her all the time. If I've not told you about her - can't remember - I will if you ask. Last point re. 'don't blame others'. Are you one of these people who, when reading someone gets mugged, says 'Well it must have been their fault. They must have provoked the mugger somehow! It wasn't the mugger's fault, if he hadn't been provoked, he wouldn't have done it, poor soul!' I'd LOVE to know how to handle 'joshing', I flat don't AND they know it. The others DO know how to handle it. SO I get the lot because I'm the easiest target. I know it's joshing, I know it's not serious - but it IS merciless at times and I just wanna be out of the area when it happens, it's too back-to-the-schoolyard for me. Re: the questions, you missed the point. I wasn't asking for responses to the answers, I was asking you if they were closer to your definition of the ideal answer or not. You showed me a definition of a good answer to a question, just wondering if I'd gotten it right. And do you think Soulmate will be back sometime, or have I hurt her too much and it's just us two now? You can answer that, I'm not asking you to say what Soulmate would answer, just your own personal opinion. Chris.

Dear Chris :-) Hope you're doing well. Ok, here goes... "..felt I was being attacked from all sides.." You felt victimized. "..which meant they were against me too, didn't it?" No, I don't think they were against you too. It could be that they laughed with them to "end the joke". Further talking would encourage to stay in the topic longer. The best way to treat obstacles is to use them as stepping-stones. Laugh at them, tread on them, and let them lead you to something better. "I always wash/dress at best.." Good for you :-) We have but only one back. We don't need that many pieces, just as long as the one on our back is a clean piece :-) "What if I'm focused on my positives and they're focused on my negatives..." I do my thing, I "let them" do their thing. I keep focusing on my positives, inside out. Every aspect of me. From a clean shirt on my back to the ability to stay peaceful no matter what is the situation I am in. ".. teasing/laughing thing will happen again." Learn to laugh it off ( to reduce the apparent importance of something so that it doesn't affect you as much - usually by joking about the situation) "If I were a chicken, how may times would I seek the company of foxes.." One time. I would have been eaten at that one time. If I am still alive, I will go into deep thinking and I would have realised those were not foxes, so I need not be afraid of them. "..two ways of looking at your last two sentences.." Yes, two sides of a coin, like in EVERY situation. I choose not to beg, borrow or rob. I choose self-respect. I choose to give (goodness)... You have choices too. "..nobody gives me anything, not even an opportunity.." Your computer broke down story, "got stuck, so I talked him through doing right." Can you see this was one opportunity that presented itself? Kindness begets kindness. The effects of kindness may not be seen immediately but they're there... "Terminal boredom, flat bored" Do you feel peaceful today? Seek peace. That'll keep you properly occupied. Is there someone out there whom you think needs a helping hand? Meaningful things to do. Did you exercise today? Be kind to your physical body. Did you laugh today? Read a joke, mental liberation Are you able to feel gratitude? Start a thank-you journal. Would you want to be an encouragement to others? Write a blog. "...sticking pictures in books.. coloring..(believe it or not, that's the latest thing they give me!.." with a change of attitude, these repetitive past-times can be meditative. You can get insights while at it! Whatever is in front of you, give it your best. "Don't blame others.. Are you one of those.." No. I am not. When I read someone get mugged.. No guilt, no shame, no judgement. "handle joshing.. The others DO know how to handle it" Very Good! You have living examples there with you. Look, see, watch, observe... I mean exactly that. Learning by example. "..questions..just wondering if I got it right" You will know if it goes down well, if/when Soulmate responds. ..Soulmate.. Or have I hurt her too much.." I believe Soulmate is mentally strong and secure :-) Have a pleasant time :-) Peace within

Dear Chris :-) In my latest post.. In every paragraph that I wrote, I have learned much. I hope you did too. Do know that every situation, it's not what is the situation that matters, what's more important is how you relate to the situation. I hope you will do some "work" and march on bravely, in a calm and peaceful manner. It is your journey. Others can give you a helping hand, but ultimately, it is your journey. Serenity, courage and wisdom. Serenity - to accept the things I cannot change Courage to change the things I can Wisdom - to know the difference.

Dear Seen-thru. I think you and your advice are great and I'm lucky to have both! Shortest post here ever. I'm gonna have a nap now and I'll post the tune for you in the monring. Thanks for everything Chris.

Dear Chris Thank you:-) You're a great guy yourself...not giving up / searching for answers. *thumbs up* You're lucky because you're being receptive :-) Enjoy your nap ZZzzzz... And... you're most welcome :-) Friendship.

Dear Seen-Thru. Here's the Hubic link for the new one, you said you got the link working eventually last time so I'm using the same site again. https://hubic.com/home/pub/?ruid=aHR0cHM6Ly9sYjk5MTEuaHViaWMub3ZoLm5ldC92MS9BVVRIXzZlZmYxNGE3NGE2OGU5N2UxYjk1Y2YzOTg0OWJhZThjL2RlZmF1bHQvLm92aFB1Yi8xNDc0MzAxODgyXzE0NzUxNjU4ODI/dGVtcF91cmxfc2lnPWJhMDY4MTg2NjRmYTQzY2IzZWYzMGUyZThjMzg5MGRlZmU3NjE5ZjMmdGVtcF91cmxfZXhwaXJlcz0xNDc1MTY1ODgy# Just copy/paste if it doesn't come up clickable and tell me if you have any probs and I'll put it up somewhere else. They're having social sessions with the other mencaps at a local centre but I flat haven't got the courage to go there after the last meeting TBH. Not cowardice per se, it's just if every time you touched a wire you got an electric shock, you'd be a bit more careful about doing so until you found out WHY and what you could do to stop that from happening. Was kinda hoping you could drop me a few pointers - and remember when you do that these people are adult in name only. Nor are they really childlike. A lot of them are REALLY strong and they know this and don't mind goading and goading until they get a reaction out of you, then they've got an excuse to smack you one. I don't mind smacking back but I'm not sure if that's the way to go or not. Whenever I'm there, they know I'm an easy target and the atmosphere kinda boils over with them all wanting a go until I'm gone. Which sounds paranoid, and I know it's kinda being done in fun because I'm only half one of them so it's like having an able-bodied to have a go at, but underlying it IS a desire to 'have a bash' and I've been called out by their kind on a few occasions in my life. The co-ordinators have always stomped on the situation then but I DO feel like I'm being protected by co-ordinators more than being with friends. They're more feral, for want of a better description. (Got called out by one of them at College, tried to dodge him but he caught up with me and I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. I got a few juicy ones back but that guy had fists of rock and didn't mind bruising them as long as my face was the cause of the bruises. Many other times, I can tell all the able-bodieds there are on the edge of their seats, looking out for me. Which is nice, but I'm supposed to be amongst friends there, no?) So I didn't go today because I was wondering if I could have a few pointers first. In many ways they ARE adult, but it's a different KIND of adultness, somehow more primitive with a veneer of modernity on top. I'm EXPECTED, on my brain-ratings, to be on the same level but I can't do it. Or never have been able to yet, any ideas?

Very sorry, forgot, Seen-Thru. The track will be up for 10 days, after which time I'll have to repost it if you've not managed to listen to it by then. Yours with thanks - forgot to put that on the above! - Chris.

Dear Chris :-) Thank you for the music. It is beautiful, it stirs imagination:-) It's a pity you didn't go to the social sessions yet very understandably. 1) See if you can change your mindset. Each time when you go for these session, take it as an opportunity to practice, that it is a lesson to be learned, to be mastered. Once the mindset is conditioned, a big part of the battle is won. 2)Try not to join in the physical joking/goading as others may not have the discernment/control of the amount of strength in a smack. 3)When others make fun of you, try if you can raise above it, realise deeply - that they are ignorant, in the sense that they do not know yet that loving kindness is one of the most important factor in social cohesiveness, so don't take in all in and don't take it personally. 4) At times, perhaps you can laugh with them even if the joke is on you. Put your ego aside and laugh with the world. So, instead of they laugh at you.... They laugh with you. Change of mindset (no. 1). All the ways/methods/techniques is available for the sake of making well/healing of the mind. Is the will available? Is the mind ready? Love.

Dear Seen-thru. Thanx for liking the music! It's not so much I mind laughing at myself, I don't. It's just if you come out with TOO good a riposte to the pack leader, he suddenly realises he might be about to lose face and the only way to save face is to literally smack down the one being guyed, lest he himself finds himself to be the butt of his own joke. I don't mind the ripostes, but that's how I lost my teeth - 'What's it like being a retard, then?' 'That's odd, was about to ask you the same thing....' end of teeth! And if you DON'T answer back, they just keep on upping the ante. True, the helpers quieten them down but they keep on restarting, you know they're restarting because you're there, so you spend the whole time wanting to leave to bring peace to the situation. That's how it CAN be with idiots in/outside bars too, even if you're not going in, just walking past, you suddenly get a tsunami of derision aimed at you. You ignore it, there's a risk of them coming after you. You riposte better than them, they want to thump you to save face. You agree with them about yourself - and you're going to be the target for ages, every time they see you. 'Look! It's that mongy. Hello, you f'in retard!' I know it's then 'just ignore' territory but you know from then on there's always the chance it will become physical, because it does. So there's gotta be a way to kinda integrate yourself with them just enough so you know you're not gonna get thumped. Still jeered at, for sure, but in a friendlier, it's-a-joke-we-won't-thump-you manner. Initially it's a challenge to see who's boss. If you can get it on a 'you're not in our gang but you're not a threat' territory you're OK. It's getting it there that's the plobrem! And it's not my ego I promise you. It's knowing that when they start it's a challenge and even if you don't rise to it, they may take it out on you anyway just for the heck of it - been there often. Even if you can get it to 'pitying the poor hapless idiot' stage, that's a LEETLE better. It's just so you know you're safe with them and they're not going to suddenly turn on you - been there many times, too. One moment, friendly tail-wagging doggies, next moment, rabid wolves and you've no idea what you've done to set them off. Next stop, A and E! My ego don't come into any of the above. Not being thumped does! Yours Chris.

Hi again, Chris. I'm sorry Seen-Thru isn't for whatever reason responding any more. Listen, you basically asked me up there whether I was sure your GP can help you, and the short answer is ABSOLUTELY, YES, WITHOUT A DOUBT. They're responsible for getting effective treatment *and* social support for anyone registered with their surgery with any physical or mental illness - or, in your case, condition (the Asperger's). I advise you tell him/her of your social difficulties (not least, getting lumped in with groups featuring people that are too far underneath your own intelligence and capabilities level and therefore socially dissatisfying) and the fact it gets you so down you even consider suicide (to the point of having taken full preparatory steps). The last part is imperative to mention, as it'll put him/her into urgent action stations mode on your behalf. Who knows - you might even qualify for special/sheltered accommodation and higher govt benefits? Please give it a try, it could improve your lifestyle quality, majorly.

Dear Soulmate. It's great to hear from you again, I really thought I'd done something so bad I never would, and I don't know what I've done to offend Seen-Thru eithyer, I'd kinda hoped that if I did put my foot in it she'd tell me why so I could apologize, because I really don't always see it. When I look at it as 'getting lumped in with groups featuring people that are too far underneath my own intelligence' that sounds really patronising on my part. I don't mind being with them, I just don't seem to conversationally 'get on their level' somehow. They all know how to react to eachother's actions, I just don't know how to 'go along' with it all. Thing IS, I don't know what I want the answer for me to be, not really. I want others to stop reacting to the face, that's for sure, but sheltered accommodation would be 24/7 with the kinda people I don't know how to mix with in day centres. They tried that with me once, I was living in a place for disabled people in Bexhill and there were people with their hands permanently buckled to their chairs so they didn't self-harm, people permanently rocking and screaming, lots of people of various ages just running about all the time and yelling at the staff. The staff didn't really know what to do with me, I didn't need help washing/dressing, I kept my own room tidy, the activities the others found challenging I honestly found pretty straightforward and I kept volunteering to help WITH the others and they kept coming up with reasons why the lunatic couldn't be allowed to help out in the asylum! (Apart from one glorious 2-day period when they had to re-type a manual and my 90WPM speed came in dead useful! After that, back to square 1. Why 2 days for a manual? Think there was nearly 400 pages of the thing, chock full of Tipp-exed notes, in plastic sleeves in a folder. Apparently Big Boss had told them to 'get that mess tidied!') I'm trying to help one of them again now. A lady named Lucinda who's permanently CLASSED as mentally ill when she is not, she's Asperger's. Her brain works fine, it's just been institutionalised and never given enough to do (like mine, but I realise the fact more than she does.) It's just she's BIG - well over 6 ft and at least 19 stone and the staff overreact to her. She doesn't use that fact, like some of the others do, to hold a sword of Damocles over the staff but they will try to jump out at her with straitjackets and they've not yet learned that doing that to a lady who's 19 stone is predominantly muscle can be a tad injurious to one's nose! One HUGE improvement she HAS made on that place, bless her, is now the head carer has had to clean up his act re. teasing the others - he's met his match in Lucinda. I'm trying to get her out of there - but I know exactly what the regime is with the others and if he tries it on with Lucinda he knows I'll happily report all she says to his bosses, so he's quietened down a LOT these days and the others are perking up a bit now. No, Lucinda's NOT a potential g/f or anything, it's just she's another 'me' in a way and I want to get her a bit of training and her own flat. I'll stop now, to keep it short - are we friends, for want of a better word (which no doubt you'll suggest!) again? Is it OK to talk to you? I did't mean to alienate you, you know. Got a slightly selfish reason for asking - I've written a poem for a fairly heavyweight competition and I was wondering if I could get your opinion of it before sending it off to them. I know you don't think so but I DID try to do everything you told me. Yours Chris.

Chris, you haven't offended either of us. I'm just too busy these days to do more than one or a few posts with anyone and I can see no cause for any clash up there between yourself and Seen-Thru so I'm imagining something important cropped up in her life all of a sudden, too. I PROMISE you that's all it is. But why won't you believe me when I say you didn't offend me or alienate me or ANYTHING me? Surely the impression you've got of me doesn't allow for the idea of my being someone too lacking in self-assertiveness to just say so were it the case? LOL Trust me - if you *had* done anything wrong, I would definitely tell you. Through a megaphone, knowing me! But you haven't. It's just that your needs are too much to cope with over the forum and when I'm already so over-busy these days (this isn't my day-job; I have a day job AND family AND am trying to do up this house ready to sell in order to emigrate abroad. That's all, nobody's fault, least of all yours...just the way it is. If the doctor explores such things as sheltered or specialised accommodation with you then you must tell him/her what you've told me about the last attempt SO THAT this time more care is taken to put you with likemindeds. But I imagine that wouldn't be the first on the menu, anyway. First would be getting his/her help with more befitting company and a job if you want one. So don't let past bad experiences stop you where future options are concerned; that would be daft when that event and whatever future possible event are two distinctly separate...well, EVENTS. I imagine once you didn't like some certain vegetable that you now in later years like - right? Things change, things can be improved upon. Asperger's, as yourself and Lucinda know, is *NOT* a mental illness, it's a neurological condition, i.e. you come out of the womb wired slightly differently to 'normal' people. It's an incapacitation of a sort, but even then, ONLY because people expect normal and normal ways of functioning, relating and such. So I fail to see how it can be classed as a mental illness by anyone who actually knows anything about ASD (- in fact, I think whomever gave her that idea was showing their own ignorance, wouldn't you say?) Anyway, how do you get on with Lucinda (in the normal conversational and interactional ways, I mean) because it sounds to me like you've gone and made a firm new friend there? :-) And a bodyguard? LOL How handy is that! No, you and I aren't Friends per se. Again, I don't make friends with anyone on forums (personal policy). And as far as being a type of pen-pal, I'm afraid it's not even possible for me to make any promises to check-in on this thread on any kind of regular basis. Sorry :-(. Wish things were different, but they're not. However, I do have time to check out the odd post and poem - anything fairly one-off like that - that's okay, that'd only take me a few minutes so - yes - "hit me!" with it and I'll try to make time to read it tonight or, failing that, tomorrow.