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Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 04:54:00 EST
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         Speed Bump <DNWIEBE@OWUCOMCN.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Dan's restaurant experience

Preface disclaimer:  The following message is a response to Lauren's comments
on my original fancy-restaurant post.  I asked her to review it before I
posted it, and she says that most of it is in my head and bears no resemblance
to reality.  So, as I say at the end of the message, don't take this to be
a reflection on Lauren or Lauren's parents or anything else; these are just
my personal, biased impressions, which are no less disturbing to me for the
fact that they're mostly in my head.

Lauren writes:
>I'd say you *are* being unfair to [my parents]....perhaps more than slightly.

        I've already apologized to Lauren, but it's probably the right thing
to do to make clear to the whole list, if possible, that I meant to cast no
aspersions on Lauren's parents.  I don't think they're bad people, and I don't
dislike them, and I don't look down on them.  I *am* scared to death of them,
because it seems that when I'm with them, every time I turn around I transgress
some unknown social convention and invite rather incredulous correction ("How
could he *possibly* not know that?").  Now, it doesn't really happen *that*
often (it happened maybe a dozen times in a week), but the fact that it *can*
happen unpredictably at any point is what makes me nervous.
        This doesn't affect me with most people, because I figure they'll
either get used to me, or they'll get sick of correcting me and wander off,
and both options are perfectly acceptable to me.  But Lauren's parents,
especially if they eventually move to our town, as seems likely, are going
to be involuntarily attached to me for quite some number of years, and they're
going to see me often, whether they like it or not; and if they reach the
fed-up point where most people just freely wander off, and they can't wander
off, they're liable to get resentful, and I don't want resentful in-laws;
so I have a compulsion to offend their sensibilities as little as possible,
coupled with the fact that I am constantly inadvertently finding new sensi-
bilities to offend.

>So even though he had a bad experience, he was there completely *by his
>own choice*.

        Welllll...not precisely.  It was one of those things (or at least
it felt like one to me) where if you insist on being stubborn and going your
own way, everybody else will be gracious enough to make room for you
and politely pretend that you're *not* being stubborn and going your own way,
but the fact that you *are* being stubborn and going your own way and
forcing everyone else to make sacrifices to accomodate you will be quietly
noted for future reference, and will come back later to haunt you.
        As another example, Lauren's father mentioned at one point that if
he had known that it was going to make me that uncomfortable, he would have
been happy to have been taken to Denny's (an all-night, moderately priced,
strictly utilitarian restaurant chain we have around these parts) instead.
Now, I *believe* him;  I'm sure he would have been happy at Denny's for his
birthday.  But he was obviously tremendously enjoying the fancy restaurant,
the solicitous service, the exotic (to me, anyway) menu, the extravagant
prices that he wasn't paying, and so on.  While he would have been happy
at Denny's, he wouldn't have been nearly *as* happy there as he was at The
Lion's Share, and the fact that I in my social incompetence had deprived
him of the full birthday fancy-restaurant experience would be remembered.
        Clarification here: I'm not saying he would hold it against me in a
manipulative, vengeful, I-did-that-for-you-and-so-now-you-must-do-this-for-me
sort of way; but it would still be remembered, and it would still affect
future interactions.  For example, next year things might be arranged so that
his birthday dinner happens while we're not there, because if we were there
he'd feel obligated to choose Denny's over a fancier restaurant for me, and
he would rather eat by himself at a fancier place.  And of course this means
that Lauren doesn't get to eat the birthday meal with her father, and also
that either she doesn't get to buy it for him (which she enjoys, and which
means that he won't be able to eat in quite as fancy a place as otherwise),
or she'll have to send him the money (in which case, since she's not there
in person, he'll have to worry much more about the cost of the meal than he
would if she were there).  So things would be all screwed up, and it'd be
my fault, even though nobody might hold it against me.
        So, while the polite social gesture (being given a chance to refuse)
was made, there was really never any question but that I'd go, and go to
a fancy restaurant, because this was a case where I had been served prior
notice of which choice was optimum and which was merely acceptable (as far
as social convention was concerned), and obviously I was going to want to
make the optimum choice.
        As it was, I may have screwed up anyway, because it was apparent
that I was very uncomfortable at The Lion's Share, and I may have caused
an impact on future events in spite of myself.  I tried to be careful to
let everyone know that having once gone through this, I now had enough
experience with it that if we came to The Lion's Share again, at least the
unfamiliarity of everything wouldn't be as much of a problem for me,
especially if we sat in the same room at the same table in the same positions,
and I were able to order the same thing.  Maybe it'll be enough; I just hope
nobody thinks, "Well, we know he doesn't like The Lion's Share; next
time we'll try a different fancy restaurant, and maybe he'll like *that* one."

        Finally, my purpose in this series of messages has not been to create
in your minds a personal opinion, accurate or otherwise, of Lauren's parents
(although I can understand why she would want to defend them from inaccurate
negative opinions); it is: first, to describe to normal people what I, as a
possibly autistic person, experienced and felt during what many people would
consider a normal, everyday occurrence; and secondly, to find out if I shared
these reactions with any other autistics on the list.

Shalom,
Dan
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