Identity
Oct 3, 2024
Identity, by my personal definition, is how one sees themselves; it is self-defined. Identity reflects reality, which explains why it may be incongruous with reality in some cases.
Naturally, we believe our identities to be real, save for cases in which it is used to decieve others or even ourselves. Examples of these cases may appear in job applications or during phases of denial respectively, but the former is beyond the scope of this post. There is a discussion to be had on such conflict-of-interest scenarios with respect to identity, but it's been muddied so beyond recognition recently that I'm not even gonna get into it. Maybe another time, if I can find the words.
It is never a one-sided relationship, however, as identity also influences reality itself. For example, an American family may have a surname with origins in Ireland and therefore take pride in their Irish ancestry. Perhaps somebody who was labeled as a "visual learner" by their 3rd grade teacher held on to that identity throughout academia, influencing their decision to pursue a career in graphic design. Or perhaps one's heterosexual identity may influence his aspirations to marry his girlfriend and raise a family together.
I was all three of these things. But I'm not Irish, a visual learner, nor am I heterosexual. Still, at any moment I believed those labels to be true, they were no more real than my current identity is now.
We're all learning how to navigate ourselves and the world around us, and it's hard if not impossible to say at any time whether we've found our place in it, or who we are. As soon as we think we have things figured out, our concepts of self are shattered, and we're left to pick up the pieces.
Autistic or not, everybody has has to conform to social norms, be it for acceptance, safety, or comfort. In a cruel way, however, this experience is not only more difficult as an autistic person, but it's also far more necessary for our survival. We may not know why we're conforming or even what we're conforming to; the way we see it, it's just what people do, and we don't want to be weird for not doing it as well.
The autistic struggle for conformity has a lot of parallels with that of the queer experience. In my case, when the concept of dating was introduced to me by my next door neighbor as a kid, it was as foreign to me as the idea of maintaining eye contact. I didn't understand it whatsoever, but as soon as it was realized before me, I quickly loaded it into my arsenal of programatic social tools I used to fit in. When asked who I would date if given the chance, I listed off the first five names of girls I thought were cool alongside some compliments on their smiles or whatever. Even back then I remember cringing at myself over it.
As this social tool developed through high school and college, my concept of what love was matured as well. I got into my first real relationship because, by every autistically concieveable metric, I felt I was in love. I made tough sacrifices to exercise my commitment to our future. I felt grateful to have her in my life and enjoyed the time we spent together.
...So what's the issue?
The best way I could put it is that every emotion I had could be articulated. There was something that, in retrospect, I had always been missing. I didn't know it at the time, but I had fallen in love with another guy. I always thought it was some annoying figure of speech to describe love as a deeper feeling beyond words, but I see that this cliche is reality now that I've felt it myself. Feeling it has lifted an existential dread I felt in the absence of deeper meaning and connection. Even though another relationship isn't currently attainable given my current circumstances (plus he has a boyfriend LOL), just knowing of its possibility has completely changed my outlook on life and given me so much to look forward to. I'll spare you the details, but it's a lot, a LOT of gay shit.
I am so excited for the future, but I could not even begin to describe how overwhelmingly terrible most of this experience has been. It's an immense tragedy to have a future with somebody taken away after realizing it was doomed to fail by my own sexuality, and I can't even begin to imagine what it's like to be on the other end of it. There's so much I could write about that has happened, but I tend to try to think on the positive side of things, and everything positive is yet to come. I suppose it's a bit selfish of me.
All I can say is that you know who you are better than anybody else. Nobody can tell you who the hell you are. If anybody tries to convince you they know you better than you do, they're not there for you. They don't have a damn clue. Love who you love, do what you love.
If you've read this far, thank you. Your identity is real, and you deserve to live in peace with it, never to question yourself for the sake of others.