I have a love-hate relationship with being sociable. I adore spending time with good friends and family. A fully engaged chat with someone interesting, about subjects of interest, is one of life’s profoundest joys. Combine that with a dollop of the freewheeling, carefree ping pong of wry and silly banter and you have something close to perfection. So, in this sense, I am not anti-social at all. I am quite the opposite. I am highly social and sociable to boot. But this is only a part of who I am. Yes, I can behave in an extroverted and highly socially engaged manner in certain situations, but as a late-diagnosed and heavily camouflaged autistic, I would not describe myself as one of life’s natural extroverts.
In this sense, I am incredibly anti-social. Much of the time, I just want to be left the hell alone. I don’t want to talk to anyone, even people I happen to really like. People whom, under other circumstances, I would more than happily have a conversation with. This isn’t because they’ve done anything wrong. It’s because of how I’m wired. Because of my autism, I have a severely limited social battery compared to most people. People who are extroverted by nature are left energised by socialising. I, on the other hand, am left drained and depleted by the activity. If I overextend myself, it can easily lead to exhaustion, which can limit my brain’s capacity to function at a decent level.
Because of this, I have to carefully ration the amount of social activity that I engage in. The truth is, I would love to do more socialising than I’m currently doing, but it’s not really possible. This often leaves me feeling bad for a number of reasons. I worry that I’m missing out on good times, that there is a life out there to be lived in the big wide world and that I’m stuck at home merely surviving. I feel a sense of guilt that I am neglecting friends. Some of these friends I know could do with my help right about now. I also fear that I may forego opportunities that could arise from the serendipity of social interaction. This can be a lonely existence.
But this severe limitation on socialising isn’t all frustration and despair. As poetry can show, within severe constraint, beauty can emerge. There is peace and contentment to be found in solitude. Within it, productive hyperfocus can be harnessed and deep interests can be explored with enthusiasm and without distraction. And when socialising with good friends does occur, it can be all the more special because of how carefully energy needs to be rationed, rather than it being taken for granted.
