Announcements
I flicked through our local free weekly paper last night.
Like free newspapers everywhere (I suspect), it is a mixture of the major local news and sports stories from the last week, which previously appeared in the local daily paper; adverts, and a couple of pages full of births, deaths, weddings, memorials and coming-of-age announcements.
I always look at these family announcements with a sense of bewilderment and a little horror. They are so completely not what I would do. In a very real sense, I don’t understand the rationale behind people placing these messages for thousands of people to read.
If, in life, you were very popular and well known, I can see why your family might place an advert in the local paper to inform people that you’d died. So too can I appreciate why you might want to remember someone who died on that day in a previous year, although I can’t imagine why you need the world to know that you are remembering that person, and clearly the person concerned isn’t going to be reading the paper and looking pleased that you’ve remembered. Those with large social circles may want to advertise the birth of their child too so that everyone gets to hear about it, but in a sense this feels to me like they are being rather boastful.
But why tell people you’ve got married? Surely those that want or need to know will already know, because they were at the wedding? And do parents really place adds to state that their children have turned eighteen for any reason other than to embarrass them? Not if the childhood photos used are anything to go by. I find that frequently these coming-of-age announcements tell a sad but all too modern story too. First there is the boxed advert from mum and siblings. Then there is the nearly identical second box from dad and step-siblings. This feels wrong – like the clearly now divorced parents are trying to get one up on each other. Competitive families seem to mention pets too (unless they have named their children oddly), and sometimes have boxed ads from various sets of grandparents. Why? What does it achieve?
All of this rang a bell with an article I read earlier in the week on Saja’s blog. Saja says:
I don’t miss people. For most of my life, that’s been my dirty little secret. What kind of horrible, cold, selfish person doesn’t miss the people she loves?
Well, me for a start. I found Saja’s sentiments to be spot on. This is how it is for me too.
I miss the things that people do when they aren’t around, but I don’t miss the person – not even those close to me.
I think this might explain why it doesn’t occur to me to phone people to stay in touch, or to arrange to go out and socialise. It’s part of that different experience of social interaction that I have versus non-autistic people.
There’s more too. I don’t miss people, and I don’t celebrate them either. I send people birthday cards because it is expected, and I’ve programmed my on-line calander to remind me to do so. I’m not sending birthday cards to celebrate the persons birthday, nor to say that I’m thinking about them.
It really does sound cold and selfish, doesn’t it?
But it isn’t – not to me. I’m not being deliberately selfish or unfeeling. I’m just being me – that’s just the way it works for me.
And maybe it explains my lack of understanding of the newspaper announcement pages. I wouldn’t make announcements in this way because I don’t naturally miss nor celebrate people.
But most people do. I shouldn’t frown on those who place the multiple announcements from their fractured families. Yes, they are telling the world that their family is broken into pieces, but they are also all stating that they care about someone and want the world to know it.
That’s quite touching, even to my autistic brain.
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10 Comments to “Announcements”
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This is not the same for me; I miss people.
I miss people, occasionally to the point of physical discomfort (e.g. “pining” behaviour) – I may lose my appetite, feel tired, get anxious, etc.
As for celebrating people, I would, but I know people find it obnoxious. I sort of got away “celebrating” my dog, but even that attracted criticism. If it comes to it, however, I think I’d prefer to not big up someone I love even though I want to, than feel compelled to big up someone when I didn’t want to. For that reason, more and more I find myself just not doing it unless I really do feel an existing connection with the person.
I share this with you… out of sight, out of mind most of the time. Like you, I miss the things we do/did together, but somehow not the person. It’s weird… if it was a very important person, I’ll be absolutely desolate for a while, too, but I can barely picture the person; I think I’m really pining for the sense of connectedness/belonging doing something with someone I like brings.
I don’t maintain long distance relationships very well, because it doesn’t feel like we have much in common in just a couple of months of separation.
I noticed the other day that I mostly remember my deceased mother when I’m gardening, an activity she enjoyed and taught me to enjoy, though I went in a very different direction with it. The rest of the time, she rarely crosses my mind, and when she does it’s negative.
I assume it’s a function of our task-oriented minds… ??? Or a change in our routine? And once we find a new routine, they’re not in it…
I find it very difficult to remember faces.
I remember peoples body shape, and often how their hair was cut or styled. Unusual items – like tattoos get remembered as well, and sometime footwear.
But faces? Not often.
I put this down to not looking people in the eye, and thus, I don’t really look at their face much.
I also agree with your sentiment about routines – once I have a new routine, and a person who used to feature in my life isn’t in that routine, they don’t often get thought about.
It all sounds very cold and uncaring. But I’m not at all cold and uncaring – I just function differently than the norm.
I used to think not being able to remember someone’s face was due to not looking them in the eye, but I’ve experimented with that, really tried to see someone’s face, eyes, etc. and I still can’t bring it up. My partner’s favorite scarf… yes. Her way of buttering toast? Yes. Her face… no. =0(
Interesting.
I feel that I can picture my wife’s face quite well, yet…
If you asked me to draw her face, I’d have trouble doing it.
I could draw the outline of her figure pretty accurately I’d say, and even how her hair is cut – but I’d have trouble with her face.
Of course, maybe that is completely normal…
It’s probably more normal that fiction would have us believe… all those soliloquies about someone’s divine features… just fantasy. LOL
Maybe that’s why most folks have keepsakes of their dear departeds… because the mind is better triggered that way.
As for the newspaper announcements… it’s a valuable source of history. And around here, I am acquainted with many people, but not well enough to be invited, so it’s nice to know of the big events in their lives… and be able to offer congrats or condolences if I see them on the street. Maybe it’s a hold-over from small town life in your area… or a function of large extended families. Both of which my town is full of. Shoot, around here folks run memorial ads for family and friends that have been gone 10 years… maybe it’s a way of maintaining a sense of continuity with their history and roots here. A sense of place, a rootedness in this land, this community.
My mother visited me about six years ago (before our big falling-out), and as she sat across from me, she said, “Do you see anything different about me?” I could tell there must be something from the way she asked it, but for the life of me, I didn’t see anything different. She was just Mom, as she always had been.
Turns out she’d had a face lift. She was not pleased that I didn’t notice. Apparently “everyone else” noticed. Well, now we know why I didn’t (at least, I do–she doesn’t know I’m autistic, or if she does, she never let me know she knows). I think I don’t actually see people once I have enough markers to identify them; or, rather, I don’t see the details beyond those markers.
Could it be that you don’t use facial features to identify people, using a combination of other factors instead?
This feels to be the way I work. I know my brother is lanky looking, and that he wears a particular individual style of clothes. I also know roughly the way he usually styles his hair.
Would I immediately recognise him if he changed his clothing style and shaved his head?
Probably not. Would an NT person? I can’t say, but I do suspect that they use more facial clues than I do.
Yeah, I think it’s more the whole gestalt of the person (my new word this week LOL) rather than any particular detail. Gestures, voice qualities, clothing/hair style, gait… just their general feel.
I had to stop my therapist in mid-sentence the other day because I was suddenly hit by the detail of her eye make-up and I couldn’t even begin to concentrate on what she was saying. I asked her if she was wearing different eye make-up… no, she always wears it, and it’s always the same. We finally came up with the fact that she’d taken her glasses off to read something and it was like a very different face to me. I’d never seen her without her glasses on before.
Put her in a hat and beard and I probably couldn’t pick her out of a line-up if she didn’t move or talk. LOL