I was wondering if any Aspies here have had a similar experience to me. This is the story of a non-romantic relationship I had with a neurotypical girl by the name of Adriana (name changed to protect identity).
I met Adriana and her sister Stefani (name changed) in the summer of 2002 through a one-week trip with the church. Adriana and I were approximately the same age, and Stefani was two years younger than me. I became friends with these two during this trip.
I always got along with Stefani well from the start, but while things were good with Adriana for the first year, I started to smell trouble in June 2003. I had an e-mail forward from another guy that had Adriana's e-mail address on it as well, but she had never given me her e-mail address - it bugged me that she gave it to someone else but not me. I never talked to her about it but I made a big deal about it with my parents. Fortunately, next time I saw Adriana at the end of that month, things were cool.
There were two more bumps, both in the fall of 2003. In early October I talked to her on MSN about doing something together on a certain Friday later that month, and she said she'd get back to me. I never heard back from her and later heard that she went out with one or two guy friends of hers as well as Stefani, that Friday night without even inviting me. The one guy friend of hers, by the name of Christopher (name changed) will become important to this story later. I was very, very upset by this and I blocked both girls on MSN for a couple of weeks, but I unblocked them in good faith.
From here on things went well with Stefani and ultimately I became very good friends with her to this day. The other bump was just before Christmas, when I called their place and said I was coming over in 20 minutes. I made better time than expected and was there in 15 minutes, and Adriana was on her way out the door with her mom to go somewhere. That also annoyed me and I avoided her for over a week, but once again let it go when she was being nice to me. Stefani stayed at the house for me that day before Christmas though.
Things went smoothly through most of 2004, although there was something minor that was bad just before Christmas again, and I don't remember what it was at the moment. It was 2005 when things began to sour again.
In April 2005, another girl friend of mine that I liked romantically told me that she didn't have the same feelings for me that I did for her, but we would still be friends. Things were good with her and I wasn't mad at her at all. I was, however, very down about the problems I was having with my love life. So, I talked to her a lot about the problems I was having, and she was very good to talk to.
Somewhere around that time, Adriana and Christopher "officially" became a couple, and I knew through Stefani that they were spending a lot of time together. For the first while, this had no impact on my relationship with Adriana, and I had no problems. Historically, Adriana was a great, understanding person to talk to, and for several years I considered her a good friend.
However, I faced a difficult adjustment to the first six weeks of university starting in September, and naturally I turned to Adriana to talk to. I sent her several e-mails towards the end of September, but never heard back from her on them. I couldn't wait any longer to talk to someone and I dumped my problems on a girl by the name of Gina (name changed) who I had recently met in my new classes. Gina was very uncomfortable and creeped out by what I was doing to her, so she sent me a long, derogatory e-mail attacking me and my so-called excuse of AS to explain why I was the way that I was. Fortunately she backed off a week later and we get along fine to this day.
I had a lot of guilt and anger associated with what I did to Gina, and at the time, I believed that the cause of what happened was Adriana ignoring my e-mails. A few days later when Adriana came on MSN and was acting like nothing was going on, I began to lash out. On MSN I said that I didn't believe anyone anymore when they claimed they were "busy". A couple days later I made a long post in my blog, lashing out at what I called lacklustre support from certain friends of mine when I needed them most recently, saying that what happened with Gina did not have to happen. I went as far as using some of what the mayor of New Orleans said during Hurricane Katrina on WWL. Adriana e-mailed me and said that it is hard for people to be there for me when I am bitter and angry that they are not there. Nonetheless, she invited me out to a small youth gathering at church, so I believed she was going to finally give me some time to vent my frustrations about life with her.
I went that night, and Adriana brought none other than Christopher, who didn't even have anything to do with the church. Of course, as he always was, he was the centre of attention. I was crushed, and almost in tears. I left and went on a drive in the country to clear my head. Then, Adriana had the nerve to e-mail me later that night and say that she was proud of me for coming out and it meant a lot to her.
I backed off for awhile, and things were okay heading into November. I was feeling more positive about life, and Adriana and I chatted on MSN, although not about the latent issues that were emerging.
On the last Sunday of November, I was supposed to work on the final project for one of my courses, which was a group project, and it was due the next day. After searching the campus for a key group member, I found out that he ran off to his home over 100 miles away, telling some people but not informing anyone in the group. This was after he put off working on it on Friday and promised we could work on Sunday. We were in a panic, and were up very late that night scrambling to finish. I didn't get to bed until after 3 AM. The next morning I was tired and still in a panic, because things were still not finished. Then, while I was having a nice chat with a girl in the cafeteria, her black rapper gangsta 50 Cent wannabe boyfriend came along and told me that he would appreciate it if I didn't associate with her. That set me over the top, and I was outside fuming. I happened to see Adriana out there, and I said that things had taken a turn for the worse, but she wasn't there for me because all she cares about is Christopher.
Adriana sent me an e-mail that evening, but I deleted it permanently without opening it. Three days later I sent an e-mail apologizing for what happened, but maintaining my position that there had been a change in her since she had started going out with Christopher, and that she couldn't even give me 20 minutes to chat when I needed someone to talk to. I brought up Gina as well. No response. Around Christmas I e-mailed again and along with another apology, said that we need to talk about things. Her response was that things would be fine and that she didn't want to talk about what happened anymore. She was being much more pleasant. I was okay with that.
Twice in the subsequent couple weeks, I saw her at church and said hello, but she barely acknowledged me. That told me that she didn't really want to move on and that she was still going to act hurt. At that point I decided it was time to delete and block her from MSN, because I had to get on with my life and despite indicating that she wanted to move on, she was still sulking. She found out about the blocking (it is simple to find out), and she thought I didn't care about her, and that if I expected her to make an effort (which she had not done at all) then I shouldn't block her. I decided to send an e-mail effectively putting things to an end. I said that there was too much hurt, lost trust, and lost communication on both sides, and that we should just not associate with each other indefinitely. Fatal error.
Through all this things were great with Stefani, and we continued to grow closer and she continued to be a good support, which I did not always see earlier on. She did see the last e-mail I sent to Adriana, which hurt her too, but a simple apology in person (not through e-mail) to Stefani sufficed for her and things with Stefani have never been better. Stefani has continued to be a great support through everything going on, and I can always depend on her.
A month after all that, I went to reconciliation at church and talked to a priest about all this for about 45 minutes. By this point I had gotten beyond the feelings of resentment and just wanted peace and civility. He suggested I send a very brief e-mail to Adriana with an apology and an invitation to chat at some point, if she is open to it. I had a response very quickly: she didn't believe me at all, she would never forgive me, and she already closed the door to me.
Stefani believes me though. Despite being younger, she is more mature and can accept people for who they are.
At this point Adriana continues to keep me on her MSN list, and will not block me. I've been blocked/deleted for far smaller things.
Adriana's constantly contradictory behaviour is what has led me to say some things I have said about women being indecisive et. al. on the Romantic board. Throughout all the time I knew her, she could rarely keep promises, didn't call when she said she would, and would change moods constantly and unpredictably. Yet, she never hesitated to chat on MSN, and that was enough to fool me to depend on her.
I could say a lot more about this, but anyone who has made it to the end of this post will be already tired! And I don't have any Full Throttles or Red Bulls to give out!
02 Mar 2006, 7:59 pm
), Adriana STILL has me on her MSN list, according to my "scanning".
