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Aspie Exam (poem)

heather_sea

heather_sea

New Member
My 3rd ex-husband of 18 years is a good friend, and knows me really well. However, despite (or maybe because of) being very NT, he is a TERRIBLE communicator and insists on talking to me in vague hints, which leave me completely befuddled and irritated. One of my hobbies is performance poetry, so I wrote this to him:

Aspie Exam

I feel like I’m being judged,
On the results of an exam
That I don’t know I’m taking.

The criteria are unknown to me,
The questions are a mystery,
And who knows what the pass mark could be.

Why do you hint with such subtlety?
I haven’t a clue what you mean.
Please! Just say it to me directly!

Heather
24 July 2019
 
Last edited:
I liked the pome, but no, they can't speak directly, they see it as a language offence. A language crime basically.

Not sure what the attachment is, pls explain?
 
I've dabbled with poetry slam in the past, actually as the photographer, not as a poet... I couldn't write a poem to save my life... :eek:

My photo... From 2012 when I was more active in the local poetry scene...

_Digi_07(0785).jpg
 
Sherlock77 said:
My set of photos from a local poetry festival back in 2011... Calgary Int'l Spoken Word Festival 2011 I am a semi-pro photographer... The festival doesn't exist anymore, but I was the house photographer for several years of the festival... I don't do as much stage performance photos as I used to, mostly doing other stuff now...
Click to expand...
Those are great (mine always look terrible, because people take my photo with their phones, and I, um, wave my arms around a lot...)
 
And since you didn't ask Heather... Performance poetry can be very hard to photograph, simply because of rapid action of the poets as they perform...
 
I first read the poem thinking it was about an actual test. When I re-read it thinking about social interactions, then I get it - and I love it.

I recently used this to explain it to my sister-in-law:

Imagine you get invited to play a game. You ask how to play and they say, "You just play!" So you watch for a bit and you try a move you saw someone else do... and suddenly everyone looks horrified. "Why would you do that?!!!" they scream at you. So you learn not to do that. And you learn other things not to do, and for a long time it seems like all you know about the game is that the wrong move gets you yelled at.

So you study the game for a long time. You start to see rules and you find that it goes okay if you follow the rules. But if you comment about the rules you discovered, they look at you funny and say "You use rules?"

Now you can play the game well enough to get by, but you still don't know the goal of the game. Does the game end? Does someone win? What's the whole game for? But you keep playing because everyone expects you to.
 
heather_sea said:
My 3rd ex-husband of 18 years is a good friend, and knows me really well. However, despite (or maybe because of) being very NT, he is a TERRIBLE communicator and insists on talking to me in vague hints, which leave me completely befuddled and irritated. One of my hobbies is performance poetry, so I wrote this to him:

Aspie Exam

I feel like I’m being judged,
On the results of an exam
That I don’t know I’m taking.

The criteria are unknown to me,
The questions are a mystery,
And who knows what the pass mark could be.

Why do you hint with such subtlety?
I haven’t a clue what you mean.
Please! Just say it to me directly!

Heather
24 July 2019
Click to expand...
My whole life has been like this regarding human and social interaction. I understand what rocks are telling me better than most people. Unless they tell me clearly and directly, I usually can't tell the difference between "friendly," "flirty," "lets have sex," and "get away from me you creepy pervert."
 
Shamar said:
My whole life has been like this regarding human and social interaction. I understand what rocks are telling me better than most people. Unless they tell me clearly and directly, I usually can't tell the difference between "friendly," "flirty," "lets have sex," and "get away from me you creepy pervert."
Click to expand...

Oh thank you, that is so true (and got me into LOTS of potentially dangerous situations as a young woman). I find it exhausting trying to figure out what people mean, and worse is if they criticise me, and won't tell me EXACTLY why, as if I am expected to somehow figure it out by osmosis or something. That's one reason why I am now happily single.
 
Nervous Rex said:
I first read the poem thinking it was about an actual test. When I re-read it thinking about social interactions, then I get it - and I love it.

I recently used this to explain it to my sister-in-law:

Imagine you get invited to play a game. You ask how to play and they say, "You just play!" So you watch for a bit and you try a move you saw someone else do... and suddenly everyone looks horrified. "Why would you do that?!!!" they scream at you. So you learn not to do that. And you learn other things not to do, and for a long time it seems like all you know about the game is that the wrong move gets you yelled at.

So you study the game for a long time. You start to see rules and you find that it goes okay if you follow the rules. But if you comment about the rules you discovered, they look at you funny and say "You use rules?"

Now you can play the game well enough to get by, but you still don't know the goal of the game. Does the game end? Does someone win? What's the whole game for? But you keep playing because everyone expects you to.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I feel like that about real sports as well as life! I was forced to do team sports at school and could never understand any of the rules (as well as being extremely uncoordinated). Despite *looking* very athletic, I was always chosen last for any team!
 
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