Polchinski
Active Member
Up until I was 21, I was very naive. Yes, I knew I had Asperger, but I assumed that it mainly affects my lack of desire to socialize rather than lack of ability to. And yes, I knew that at some point down the line I want to marry and have kids (the idea that I need to continue my genetic line was basically a given). But since I didn't know I don't have social skills, I was assuming that I can get a wife at a flip of a finger, the moment I decide to. So I wanted to put it off till I am 30 or 40. And by the way the whole idea of being 30 or 40 was a nightmare for me (still is! I would give anything to be 20 again!) So, long story short: I was not in a rush.
So how did I become desperate to have a girlfriend? It all happened when I learned that, no, its not my choice, its THEIR choice to reject me. And yes, the sense of pride is something I always had, ever since I was a little kid. At the age of 7, I wanted to be the leader of those day-trips I had with my grandma, at the age of 9 I wanted to become famous physicist, at the age of 13 I took pride in the fact that I was one of the few people my age that knew calculus, etc. The part that I was missing was that the number of friends, or the presence of a girlfriend, had anything to do with social status. And that is the part that I have leanred by experiencing the social rejection, at the age of 21.
Now, how did that social rejection happen? I went to Clare Sainsbury's mailing list for university students with Asperger Syndrome, and I quickly got banned from there for speculating about ideas that are not politically correct. No, I didn't come to that list to make friends, I only come there to "make case study on Asperger". But, as I was part of that list, I almost began to make friends, and discovered that I liked it. So when they banned me from that list, I ended up experiencing rejection. I couldn't predict either of those two things would happen. But they did. And then I wanted to replace mailing list with something.
Now, here is where my mom came into play. She kept nagging me to go to Jewish club (called Hillel), which I always told her I don't have time to: I need to focus on my studies. But then, *after* that mailing list incident, when she happened to suggest it to me yet again, I thought to myself "okay maybe I should go ahead and go: this will help me to move past that mailing list by 'replacing' the acceptance I felt there with the acceptance at Hillel". But no, I didn't get accepted at Hillel. On the contrary, I got rejected even more harshly. At least on the mailing list I knew that by talking about non-politically-correct things I was basically "asking" to be rejected (I simply didn't care since I didn't realize I am sensitive to this, just yet), but in Hillel I honestly didn't know what I was doing wrong, yet I was rejected.
So then I went on dating sites to replace Hillel with them. Then on dating sites nobody talked to me. And I felt even more rejected. And that started this never ending cycle of obsessing about wanting friends and a girlfriend, not having them, etc.
So, if you want to ask who is to blame for my predicament of the past 20 years, you can equally say "mailing list is to blame" or "Hillel is to blame". Take away one or the other, and I would have been completely different person.
Now, if I go with the line that Hillel is to blame, and take it together with the fact that my mom was the one who suggested it to me, I would get to the conclusion that my mom is to blame.
But here is the thing. My mom's reasons for sending me to Hillel were completely different from my reasons of agreeing to go there. As far as mailing list, my mom didn't know it ever existed, I never told her. What "was" her concern was that I don't have friends -- the exact thing I used to not care about. As a matter of fact, if I look at my childhood, I remember my mom setting me up to play with kids, or taking me (together with her, of course) to two unconventional summer camps (since I presumably I won't fit into any of the conventional ones) to get me to have some friends, and never succeeded. Now, if she were to help me to have friends after I was 21, I would thank her, since as I mentioned, at the age of 21, I became myself concerned about the rejection. But as far as her trying to make friends for me when I was little kid, I resent her for this. Because she uses it as an evidence of my supposed disability. Well, how am I disabled if I simply didn't want something? And she said I had "very difficult childhood". Nope. My childhood might have been difficult *for her* but certainly not for me. I was happy the way I was. She wasn't.
Now, one thing that happened at the age of 21 specifically -- the part that MY MOM was upset about (NOT ME) -- is that I went away from home to go to graduate school. I was at home when I was undergraduate, because I assumed that staying at home is a normal thing to do and everyone does it. But then when I talked to some of the fellow students I realized they all came from across the country and I was the only one going to school while being at home. So I applied to graduate school far away from home. My mom was trying to stop me, since she thought something horrible would happen to me. But that made me all the more want to go far away from home, to prove her wrong. Well, since she couldn't stop me from going, the next best thing she could do was to push even more strongly the idea that I join Hillel. Because, in her mind, the reason things are so difficult for me is that I am isolated. So she wanted me to join Hillel so I would be less isolated. Also, in her mind, Jews help Jews (apparently she was wrong) so she thought that by joining Hillel they would somehow help me.
But now lets put the following things together:
1) My mom doesn't wnat me to leave home, but I leave home anyway
2) My mom wants to use Hillel as a replacement for home, but it doesn't work out
3) I decide to look for a girlfriend as a replacement for Hillel, which didn't work out too well either
Well, if Hillel is replacement for home, and girlfriend is a replacement for Hillel, then girlfriend is a replacement for home!
But thats where it got ridiculous because my mom never wanted me to have a girlfriend, I did! She was thinking of me as much younger than my age and, therefore, not ready for a relationship. As a matter of fact, thats also the reason she didn't want me to leave home: in her mind I was just a baby. Baby shouldn't leave home, AND baby shouldn't date.
Now in her mind, Hillel was a place to take care of her baby, but in my mind Hillel was a place for self-validation (I mean, AFTER I experienced a rejection there). That is probably why, in her mind, Hillel won't be replaced with a girlfriend, but in my mind it would be.
From my perspective, for the purposes of self validation, I should be far away from home, make friends at Hillel, AND have a girlfriend. But from her perspective, the one to protect me, I should stay at home, go to Hillel, and be single. But if the two of us are working together, then SHE replaces home with Hillel and then *I* replace Hillel with a girlfriend, and then I end up going AGAINST her will in trying to find a girlfriend ALL because of my attempts to replace the Hillel, WHICH WAS HER IDEA ANYWAY.
And, incidentally, when I DID find a girlfriend, I ended up resenting her for the same reason as I resent living with my mom. I lost a degree of independence. I thought it was just an unfortunate coincidence. But now that I look at it this way, it wasn't. After all, I was basically replacing the exact thing I ran away from when I left home. And the reason I was replacing it is because MY MOM didn't want me to run away from it. Which she coudln't stop me from running away, she DID succeed in instilling into my mind an idea of replacing it somehow. So she basically ruined it for me.
Looking at it this way, all my attempts to find a girlfriend all those years are basically equivalent to attempts to apply to schools nearby. The only difference is that when I applied to schools nearby I didn't want to, I only did it to please my mom, but when I looked for a girlfriend I wanted to. But still, my "wanting a girlfriend" would have never happened if MY MOM didn't send me to Hillel.
Now what happened when schools nearby rejected me? I was happy: that was my excuse not to go back home! So, shouldn't I be equally happy if I get rejected by Hillel and by girls? Since that is my other excuse to keep the other aspects of my independence? I guess I didn't think of it that way. Which is too bad.
I guess its no longer relevant nowdays because, even as a child, I always knew I would marry by 40, and now I am 43. So I better look for someone. But, if it wasn't for my mom, my 20-s would probably have been gone much better. I would have been focused on school like I used to, instead of obsessing about girlfriends and stuff.
So how did I become desperate to have a girlfriend? It all happened when I learned that, no, its not my choice, its THEIR choice to reject me. And yes, the sense of pride is something I always had, ever since I was a little kid. At the age of 7, I wanted to be the leader of those day-trips I had with my grandma, at the age of 9 I wanted to become famous physicist, at the age of 13 I took pride in the fact that I was one of the few people my age that knew calculus, etc. The part that I was missing was that the number of friends, or the presence of a girlfriend, had anything to do with social status. And that is the part that I have leanred by experiencing the social rejection, at the age of 21.
Now, how did that social rejection happen? I went to Clare Sainsbury's mailing list for university students with Asperger Syndrome, and I quickly got banned from there for speculating about ideas that are not politically correct. No, I didn't come to that list to make friends, I only come there to "make case study on Asperger". But, as I was part of that list, I almost began to make friends, and discovered that I liked it. So when they banned me from that list, I ended up experiencing rejection. I couldn't predict either of those two things would happen. But they did. And then I wanted to replace mailing list with something.
Now, here is where my mom came into play. She kept nagging me to go to Jewish club (called Hillel), which I always told her I don't have time to: I need to focus on my studies. But then, *after* that mailing list incident, when she happened to suggest it to me yet again, I thought to myself "okay maybe I should go ahead and go: this will help me to move past that mailing list by 'replacing' the acceptance I felt there with the acceptance at Hillel". But no, I didn't get accepted at Hillel. On the contrary, I got rejected even more harshly. At least on the mailing list I knew that by talking about non-politically-correct things I was basically "asking" to be rejected (I simply didn't care since I didn't realize I am sensitive to this, just yet), but in Hillel I honestly didn't know what I was doing wrong, yet I was rejected.
So then I went on dating sites to replace Hillel with them. Then on dating sites nobody talked to me. And I felt even more rejected. And that started this never ending cycle of obsessing about wanting friends and a girlfriend, not having them, etc.
So, if you want to ask who is to blame for my predicament of the past 20 years, you can equally say "mailing list is to blame" or "Hillel is to blame". Take away one or the other, and I would have been completely different person.
Now, if I go with the line that Hillel is to blame, and take it together with the fact that my mom was the one who suggested it to me, I would get to the conclusion that my mom is to blame.
But here is the thing. My mom's reasons for sending me to Hillel were completely different from my reasons of agreeing to go there. As far as mailing list, my mom didn't know it ever existed, I never told her. What "was" her concern was that I don't have friends -- the exact thing I used to not care about. As a matter of fact, if I look at my childhood, I remember my mom setting me up to play with kids, or taking me (together with her, of course) to two unconventional summer camps (since I presumably I won't fit into any of the conventional ones) to get me to have some friends, and never succeeded. Now, if she were to help me to have friends after I was 21, I would thank her, since as I mentioned, at the age of 21, I became myself concerned about the rejection. But as far as her trying to make friends for me when I was little kid, I resent her for this. Because she uses it as an evidence of my supposed disability. Well, how am I disabled if I simply didn't want something? And she said I had "very difficult childhood". Nope. My childhood might have been difficult *for her* but certainly not for me. I was happy the way I was. She wasn't.
Now, one thing that happened at the age of 21 specifically -- the part that MY MOM was upset about (NOT ME) -- is that I went away from home to go to graduate school. I was at home when I was undergraduate, because I assumed that staying at home is a normal thing to do and everyone does it. But then when I talked to some of the fellow students I realized they all came from across the country and I was the only one going to school while being at home. So I applied to graduate school far away from home. My mom was trying to stop me, since she thought something horrible would happen to me. But that made me all the more want to go far away from home, to prove her wrong. Well, since she couldn't stop me from going, the next best thing she could do was to push even more strongly the idea that I join Hillel. Because, in her mind, the reason things are so difficult for me is that I am isolated. So she wanted me to join Hillel so I would be less isolated. Also, in her mind, Jews help Jews (apparently she was wrong) so she thought that by joining Hillel they would somehow help me.
But now lets put the following things together:
1) My mom doesn't wnat me to leave home, but I leave home anyway
2) My mom wants to use Hillel as a replacement for home, but it doesn't work out
3) I decide to look for a girlfriend as a replacement for Hillel, which didn't work out too well either
Well, if Hillel is replacement for home, and girlfriend is a replacement for Hillel, then girlfriend is a replacement for home!
But thats where it got ridiculous because my mom never wanted me to have a girlfriend, I did! She was thinking of me as much younger than my age and, therefore, not ready for a relationship. As a matter of fact, thats also the reason she didn't want me to leave home: in her mind I was just a baby. Baby shouldn't leave home, AND baby shouldn't date.
Now in her mind, Hillel was a place to take care of her baby, but in my mind Hillel was a place for self-validation (I mean, AFTER I experienced a rejection there). That is probably why, in her mind, Hillel won't be replaced with a girlfriend, but in my mind it would be.
From my perspective, for the purposes of self validation, I should be far away from home, make friends at Hillel, AND have a girlfriend. But from her perspective, the one to protect me, I should stay at home, go to Hillel, and be single. But if the two of us are working together, then SHE replaces home with Hillel and then *I* replace Hillel with a girlfriend, and then I end up going AGAINST her will in trying to find a girlfriend ALL because of my attempts to replace the Hillel, WHICH WAS HER IDEA ANYWAY.
And, incidentally, when I DID find a girlfriend, I ended up resenting her for the same reason as I resent living with my mom. I lost a degree of independence. I thought it was just an unfortunate coincidence. But now that I look at it this way, it wasn't. After all, I was basically replacing the exact thing I ran away from when I left home. And the reason I was replacing it is because MY MOM didn't want me to run away from it. Which she coudln't stop me from running away, she DID succeed in instilling into my mind an idea of replacing it somehow. So she basically ruined it for me.
Looking at it this way, all my attempts to find a girlfriend all those years are basically equivalent to attempts to apply to schools nearby. The only difference is that when I applied to schools nearby I didn't want to, I only did it to please my mom, but when I looked for a girlfriend I wanted to. But still, my "wanting a girlfriend" would have never happened if MY MOM didn't send me to Hillel.
Now what happened when schools nearby rejected me? I was happy: that was my excuse not to go back home! So, shouldn't I be equally happy if I get rejected by Hillel and by girls? Since that is my other excuse to keep the other aspects of my independence? I guess I didn't think of it that way. Which is too bad.
I guess its no longer relevant nowdays because, even as a child, I always knew I would marry by 40, and now I am 43. So I better look for someone. But, if it wasn't for my mom, my 20-s would probably have been gone much better. I would have been focused on school like I used to, instead of obsessing about girlfriends and stuff.