The Opposite of Normal, Andrew Boggan [brene brown rising strong .TXT] 📗

that I needed to do. I had to learn to rely on my own independence to survive.

I had found a beautiful, low maintenance, cosy one bedroom flat close to the city. And on moving day my life had turned around for the better. I had full time job where I was performing well, a loving stable relationship and a flat to call my own. It was now time to test the strength of my independence.

Scott and I had a few issues going forward. He began to observe strange behavior patterns that I couldn’t control. I had become quite emotionally and mentally depressed several weeks after moving into my own flat. Each day was turning in to be a severe mental struggle and there were times when I just couldn’t get out of bed. Scott started off being nurturing and caring towards me, but as things unfolded, I ended up just pushing him away emotionally. I wanted nothing more than to be as close to him as possible and there were times when we would call and I would do nothing but cry in an emotional plea to try and get him to come over to my home so I could spend time with him. Then, when he wanted to hang out friends I’d get all depressed and upset because I couldn’t see him. In the beginning he used to give in to my emotional pleas, but eventually that would come to a stop.

I had hit rock bottom by the time September had came around and I couldn’t find any cause for what was wrong. I just assumed that I was nothing but a mental crackpot who had it brick wall and was about to crumble. I couldn’t find any suitable answer as too what was wrong with me, and all the emotional and mental stress had taken its toll on Scott; and by the time I realized what damage I was doing to him, I had pushed him away, it was too late and I had dug a bigger hole for myself – one that I was unable to crawl out of.

Scott did try on numerous occasions to find out what was wrong with me, and at the time he did everything he could, but when he learnt to the full extent of what had happened to me in Sydney and what happened with my ex Bruce, he was unable to deal with my emotional rollercoaster. Because of the issues that I always dwelled on from the past, I drove this beautiful man away from me.

On the last Saturday night in September, I had planned to meet up with a few friends from my work at a bar in Fortitude Valley. I was planning on spending a big night out with my mates and I would catch up with Scott first thing Sunday morning. During the course of the night I had been texting Scott and he seemed upset about something and I was getting quite concerned, so I decided to call it a night with my friends and go and stay at Scott’s and check if he was okay. I sent him a text asking if he wanted to come over tonight and keep him company. His response said “if you want”. I wasn’t quite sure how to take that response, but the only way to find out was to go there and see what was wrong.

I got to Scott’s and we sat on the couch watching television after I tried numerous times to find out what was wrong and I couldn’t get any answer from him. The only response I would get was “nothing’s wrong”. I had tried so many times to get him to open up to me and I felt like I had hit a brick wall and I couldn’t get any further with him. He ended up retreating to the shower and was apparently going to bed after that, so I made a snap decision to leave and never return. I wasn’t going to sit at somebody’s house and get totally ignored. While he was in the shower I had called a taxi and I waited out the front of the house for the taxi to arrive. Scott had slowly walked out of the house to the front yard where I was sitting while I waited for my cab to arrive. Without making any sort of eye contact to me he asked what was wrong. I attempted to explain how I felt like I was being ignored and that I had no need to stick around if he was going to pretend to ignore me. The only word I ever got back from him was “you’re choice”. And he calmly walked back into the house and closed the front door behind him. That was the last time I ever saw Scott after that.

What still leaves me bewildered even to this day is that if I meant so much to somebody; wouldn’t they have tried to stop me from leaving? Or perhaps I had just put too much emotional and mental stress on him that I pushed him away and it was too late to rectify the problem. Within my heart I believe the answer is both. If I was very important in his life he would have to tried to have stopped me from leaving and work it out, but then he probably did try many times before this and I didn’t pick up on it and I had pushed him too far.

By the time I had worked out the answer to my problems I had lost Scott forever. I had hit rock bottom from the events over the previous 12 months. I had been in a violent relationship; I moved interstate, changed many jobs and had no stability or set routine in my life for a whole year. The stress of this had finally caught up with me. If only I had the chance to explain this to Scott then perhaps things might be different today. The one line I heard quoted that helped me mentally and emotionally to get through my break up was “the only person in the world worth more than your tears is the one who wouldn’t make you cry”

I had taken the breakup extremely hard. I had spent my sleepless nights crying my eyes out, even to the point where my bed sheets were completely drenched from the tears that I had cried. The relationship had finished with so many issues unresolved and the hardest part above all was too close the door to that part of my past without tying up those loose ends. I still think of Scott from time to time and wonder what he’s doing with his life, I’d like to be able to sit him and down and explain so many things but after 5 years, I just can’t see that happening anymore.

I eventually managed to move on with my life and meet new people but I’ve always had one question in the back of my mind: Can people with Asperger’s really have long-term relationships and make them work? I often wonder if they can, or if it’s just me that can’t seem to make relationships work. I dread to think that there will come a time when I’m a lonely old man.

Not only do I believe it to be hard for people with Asperger’s Syndrome to make relationships work long-term, but being gay as well appears to make it incredibly difficult. From what I’ve seen in the gay community, relationships tend to be very short-lived and end up in nothing but disaster. However, I’ve come across a few couples in my life that have been together for 10, 15, 20 and even 30 years, but there are very few that have reached that milestone.

Everybody appears to be looking for love, or at least for their sole mate. But in the gay community, I just keep meeting people who want quick sexual encounters first, and then look for love. Whenever I go to the local pub in town, I grab my beer and go off to sit in the corner and observe the different crowds of people, I keep coming across people with the one intention: Sex. And it always seems to be that people are hunting out sexual encounters first, and then hoping to start dating or seeing that person. I know for a fact that would probably never work so why bother chasing something that won’t happen. Could that be my Asperger’s talking or could that just be my own weird perception?

Whenever people have made an attempt to pick me up in the pub, I’ve always ended up having to turn them down because their intentions are different to mine. If somebody was to have sex with me, its because they appreciate my mind, as well as my body, but I always feel like that I’m never given the chance to show somebody my mentality because in order for somebody to listen and understand you when you talk, in the gay community you need to be body beautiful. Without those good looks, most people wouldn’t give you a chance to shine mentally. I feel sad when that happens because I know my mind is beautiful and yet it always feels like most people don’t want any part in that. However I have no doubt in my mind that if my body was muscled, bronzed and not even a spot on my body, my beautiful mind would disappear and there would be nothing left in my head but a super ego. I’d pass on that any day.

Most of the gay community has one known fear: The fear of being alone. Yet in the community, there are so many sub groups who try to fit into the gay community and will always face that fear of being alone when they get older because of who they are. I’m talking about other personal challenges such as being deaf; mentally challenging behaviors, physically challenging behaviors and so forth. So not only do these people struggle to find other people to have relationships with; they also struggle being accepted into a community of their own, especially in the gay world. Now I don’t know if what I have just said is right or wrong, it is merely how I perceive the community through my own thoughts and feelings.

As I’ve grown older I’ve learnt more about what I don’t like as opposed to what I do like, but I’ve also learnt some very harsh lessons in making a stable relationship work. I know from past experiences where my Asperger’s has had a very negative impact on my relationships, only now when I look back them I am able to identify and pin point when and were the Asperger’s played a role in my relationship breakdowns and the only thing I can do when moving forward in the future is constantly think about the past issues and do all that is in my power to stop the Asperger’s from breaking any chance of happiness that I have. In some ways it’s like a mini war; no matter how hard you try and stop the Asperger’s, usually it always has the upper hand.

However I firmly believe that with a person who has a good grasp of Asperger’s and where it affects the individual and how certain issues can be dealt with; there is absolutely no reason why a person with Asperger’s can have a happy and loving long-term relationship.


Chapter 10


On that fateful Christmas morning when I was just 14 years of age and I was given a typewriter to start working on my first feature film script,