I've been off from work all week since it is the final week of preparation for the play, which opens tonight. I think it will go well. This is the first play for one of my co-actors but you would never know it. He plays his part so well you would think he was a seasoned veteran.
Anyway I have been going around passing out flyers advertising the play, and the other day I ran into a friend who is activity director for a fairly new senior citizens group. She invited me to join the group for some of their activities. So I did. So far this group, from what I've seen of it has only managed to attract a handful of people. One of them was a man who clearly was on the spectrum. He's nice (in a sweet, innocent way), but I am afraid that he will end up being a liability to this group and will be eventually asked to leave. Which will be a sad thing, because he will not understand why he is being rejected, and he will be hurt. But if the group is going to grow (it's competing with several larger and longer-established groups), they will have to deal with certain aspects of his behavior.
This man, I am going to call him Frank, is in some kind of therapy and does journalling as part of his therapy. All well and good, but he insists on bringing his notebooks to the group activities and reading from them. And they aren't short pieces either. They're rambling and detailed. Nor is he a good reader. He sniggers at parts of his own stories, not realizing the audience likes to discover the funny parts for themselves.
The first story he read wasn't too bad. It was about a high school sweetheart. But yesterday's story was something else again. It went on and on for about 15 minutes, until "Nora", the activity director asked him how much longer was it. The senior group only has use of the building for a certain period of time, and this was seriously cutting into the scheduled activities. There was only one other person there, a woman I shall call "Betsy". I've known Betsy and her family for quite some time. Every small town has a cluster of families who tend to dominate things and Betsy was from one of them. She's not the type to suffer fools gladly, either. I learned a long time ago that if you want to succeed socially in a small town you have to know who's who. Betsy is not someone you want to be against you.
But Frank, oblivious to Betsy's eye-rolling, continued on with his story. And I have to say it was a pretty creepy story. It was about a student nurse he had had a crush on in his college days. Early on in the story he made it clear that he was interested in this girl simply because she was a nursing student--it was the white uniform that did it for him. Well, ok, for many people uniforms are a turn-on. But his choice of the girl had nothing to do with with the kind of person she was. She might have been a rubber doll for all he cared about that.
At one point in the story, after he got up the courage to ask her out, he said that he thought about driving over to her house and waiting outside in his car even though he wasn't scheduled to show up for several hours. "Stalker," Betsy muttered, not caring if he heard. Well, I guess he didn't do that. Anyway, he goes over to the house at the appropriate and they end up sitting outside on the porch swing. The evening goes on, it gets cooler and he suggests they snuggle up together for warmth. Umm, don't you think that's moving a little fast for someone you've just met? He goes into pages of rapture about how he felt so close to her. Meanwhile Betsy has moved off to look at flyers of upcoming events and Nora is clearing away the remains of lunch. Still Frank reads on. Now here's the part that disturbed me. He said that the girl acted uncomfortable but he knew she really was only pretending.
Uh. No. Women DO NOT pretend about such things. If she was acting uncomfortable, she WAS uncomfortable. I'd be uncomfortable too. I was uncomfortable even listening. Frank has (or had) a sex problem. I've met his type before. They aren't in touch with their sexual nature for some reason, whether it is religious upbringing or other causes, and so they don't realize what is driving them. All they know is that they want to get close to a woman, but they don't understand that you have to establish a relationship first. You don't jump into things. He's hoping something sexual will happen but doesn't want to openly admit he wants something sexual to happen. And if it does happen, well, she wanted it. That's different from seduction, where the seducer knows exactly what it is he or she wants but uses trickery to achieve it.
This is why I think sooner or later there will be a confrontation, because this kind of story is clearly not appropriate for the setting and reveals a side of Frank that is rather disturbing. If he is allowed to continue, it will scare away potential members, who will go to the other senior groups, groups that Frank may have been kicked out of. Someone needs to tell him, but how? And will he actually listen? Nobody wants to hurt his feelings, but they don't want the group to fall apart either.
So what would you tell Frank?
Anyway I have been going around passing out flyers advertising the play, and the other day I ran into a friend who is activity director for a fairly new senior citizens group. She invited me to join the group for some of their activities. So I did. So far this group, from what I've seen of it has only managed to attract a handful of people. One of them was a man who clearly was on the spectrum. He's nice (in a sweet, innocent way), but I am afraid that he will end up being a liability to this group and will be eventually asked to leave. Which will be a sad thing, because he will not understand why he is being rejected, and he will be hurt. But if the group is going to grow (it's competing with several larger and longer-established groups), they will have to deal with certain aspects of his behavior.
This man, I am going to call him Frank, is in some kind of therapy and does journalling as part of his therapy. All well and good, but he insists on bringing his notebooks to the group activities and reading from them. And they aren't short pieces either. They're rambling and detailed. Nor is he a good reader. He sniggers at parts of his own stories, not realizing the audience likes to discover the funny parts for themselves.
The first story he read wasn't too bad. It was about a high school sweetheart. But yesterday's story was something else again. It went on and on for about 15 minutes, until "Nora", the activity director asked him how much longer was it. The senior group only has use of the building for a certain period of time, and this was seriously cutting into the scheduled activities. There was only one other person there, a woman I shall call "Betsy". I've known Betsy and her family for quite some time. Every small town has a cluster of families who tend to dominate things and Betsy was from one of them. She's not the type to suffer fools gladly, either. I learned a long time ago that if you want to succeed socially in a small town you have to know who's who. Betsy is not someone you want to be against you.
But Frank, oblivious to Betsy's eye-rolling, continued on with his story. And I have to say it was a pretty creepy story. It was about a student nurse he had had a crush on in his college days. Early on in the story he made it clear that he was interested in this girl simply because she was a nursing student--it was the white uniform that did it for him. Well, ok, for many people uniforms are a turn-on. But his choice of the girl had nothing to do with with the kind of person she was. She might have been a rubber doll for all he cared about that.
At one point in the story, after he got up the courage to ask her out, he said that he thought about driving over to her house and waiting outside in his car even though he wasn't scheduled to show up for several hours. "Stalker," Betsy muttered, not caring if he heard. Well, I guess he didn't do that. Anyway, he goes over to the house at the appropriate and they end up sitting outside on the porch swing. The evening goes on, it gets cooler and he suggests they snuggle up together for warmth. Umm, don't you think that's moving a little fast for someone you've just met? He goes into pages of rapture about how he felt so close to her. Meanwhile Betsy has moved off to look at flyers of upcoming events and Nora is clearing away the remains of lunch. Still Frank reads on. Now here's the part that disturbed me. He said that the girl acted uncomfortable but he knew she really was only pretending.
Uh. No. Women DO NOT pretend about such things. If she was acting uncomfortable, she WAS uncomfortable. I'd be uncomfortable too. I was uncomfortable even listening. Frank has (or had) a sex problem. I've met his type before. They aren't in touch with their sexual nature for some reason, whether it is religious upbringing or other causes, and so they don't realize what is driving them. All they know is that they want to get close to a woman, but they don't understand that you have to establish a relationship first. You don't jump into things. He's hoping something sexual will happen but doesn't want to openly admit he wants something sexual to happen. And if it does happen, well, she wanted it. That's different from seduction, where the seducer knows exactly what it is he or she wants but uses trickery to achieve it.
This is why I think sooner or later there will be a confrontation, because this kind of story is clearly not appropriate for the setting and reveals a side of Frank that is rather disturbing. If he is allowed to continue, it will scare away potential members, who will go to the other senior groups, groups that Frank may have been kicked out of. Someone needs to tell him, but how? And will he actually listen? Nobody wants to hurt his feelings, but they don't want the group to fall apart either.
So what would you tell Frank?
