Chris.

The point of this blog is to improve mental health, so I'm going to write about this just once (and it's going to be a long story, sorry) for future nostalgia purposes, and also in hopes that we can put this to rest. It's not that I'm still terribly upset about it. It's just that it was the catalyst for a lot of things that has happened since then, and I'm still trying to figure out what happened.

It all started when I began to talk to a floor-mate of mine. We'll refer to him as DR, mostly because I usually call him by both his first and last name and I don't want to type all that out each time. So anyways, one of his friends, Chris, requested to be my friend on Facebook. I had never met him before, nor did I know who he was, but he goes to IU, so I added him.

About two months later (around the beginning of December) he randomly messages me on Facebook chat around 5am or so. We talked for about two hours. Honestly, until about an hour and a half in, I thought he was just fucking with me. His speech patterns and vocabulary were really strange. However, at that point I asked him if he was gay. He didn't list a sexual orientation on his profile, and in that case that's what I usually assume. I didn't care; I was just curious. But anyways, his response clued me into the fact that maybe I was talking to someone who was just a bit different. He wanted to know how he could make his profile more appealing to women, so that the wrong people wouldn't hit on him. After awhile he got discouraged and said, "Maybe I should just stop trying. I've been alone forever. I don't mind it." It was so sincerely dejected-sounding that I tried to be positive: "Oh, relationships are pretty cool, though. Don't you want someone you can just hang out with and have sex with whenever you want?" His response: "That sounds terrifying." He goes on to tell me that the thought of sexual intimacy freaked him out, and that he never really had sexual thoughts. He doesn't even masturbate. I was familiar with the concept of asexuality, so I wasn't shocked or anything, but it was interesting nonetheless.

We talked the next night as well, and I guess that's when our "friendship" began. What I came to realize, is that Chris has Asperger's Syndrome. At least, I'm almost positive he does. He had a lot of the defining features, like the distinct speech pattern/vocabulary, difficulty assessing humor, ignoring social niceties, etc. He even had synesthesia in the form of colors projected over people, which he perceived as aura-reading. I know one can't just go around diagnosing people with things that they don't have, so I asked him. Maybe this is insensitive, but I asked, "Hey, um. Have you ever heard of Asperger's Syndrome?" His response told me everything: "Oh no. Nononono. Yes." He asked me if we could not talk about it, and I apologized and said, "Of course." Then he signed off on me.

We kept on talking, though. The more I talked to him, the more I grew to really like him. He was super intelligent. He didn't play games. I didn't have to worry about him just talking to me because he wanted to have sex with me, because I knew he wasn't interested in it. He told me I had one of the brightest aura's he had ever seen. He told me he interpreted my aura told him I was passionate and inquisitive, but that I needed to take care of myself more. In retrospect, this all sounds insane. But everything he said was so sincere, so genuine. When I got him on a subject he was interested in, he would go off on a tangent. His vocabulary was amazing. His intelligence was completely unpretentious, because he just really did not care what other people thought. He was refreshing, and I absolutely loved talking to him.

We hung out just twice. He was incredibly nervous to meet me in person. He said he was afraid he would say the wrong thing and offend me. It took a lot of coaxing and assurances on my part, even though it was his idea in the first place. He had sent me this video of him playing piano. I do enjoy watching people play instruments, so I asked him if he wanted to play the piano for me the first time we met. I wasn't sure he would be comfortable with it, but surprisingly he was really excited about the idea. I walked to his dorm, he took me to his dining hall which has a piano, and he played the song in the video and a few others for me. He was so nervous it was almost alarming, but he was sweet, and it was very interesting. He walked me back to my dorm, and we talked about the existence of God and religious history on the way there. He was incapable of anything but deep conversation the majority of the time.

Music was sort of our thing. We would send each other songs back and forth. He had excellent taste, and after awhile he seemed to understand what sort of songs I would enjoy. I can't even listen to "Beyond the Sea" by Bobby Darin anymore because of that. He would also send me cute articles and things off the internet, like the "Party Cat" web comic series. It was amazing how observant he could be when it came to my interests.

As time went on, he started to act differently. I think he began to trust me, and he was a lot less nervous. He would even tease me. I know I sound infatuated, and I'm willing to admit that I did like him a lot. But he had told me the first time that we talked that he wasn't interested in sex, and that is sort of something I require in a romantic relationship. Also, he wasn't really emotionally available enough. I can be realistic enough to say it would have never worked romantically, but my main concern was being his friend. He was fascinating, and I just wanted to be able to have conversations with him. I was content with nothing more than that. Although, I'll admit it. He was cute, and that was something. He had the most gorgeous eyes I have ever seen in my whole entire life. They were just... mesmerizing. They were huge, round, blue-ish green, and he had the longest, thickest, curliest eye lashes. It was enough to make me swoon a little, but still, that's just aesthetic stuff. Not that important.

Some of the things he did seemed to imply that he was interested in more. However, I never made a definitive opinion about it, because I understood he could've not realized the implications of his actions. Like one time he called me beautiful. He would say things like, "I can be receptive to your needs and desires," if I had an issue with something. He tried hard. After the first time, he would always come up with what we should do when we hung out. He would say "Let's hang out on Sunday. We can watch listen to music and talk about politics."

We made plans about six times, but four of the times he stood me up. I would text him and say, "Are we still hanging out in an hour?" and he would text me the next day and apologize profusely, saying he had fallen asleep. It seemed like a lie, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt... over and over again. Also, even if he was lying, I just figured it was social anxiety. I was willing to deal with it.

The last time we were supposed to hang out was a Sunday night. I even came back to Bloomington from Fort Wayne a bit early so we could. He had told me we could watch cartoons and he would bring pizza. I told him I couldn't eat most pizza because of the vegan thing, and he responded with, "Well, looks like I'm just going to have to find a vegan pizza place then." It was sweet.

And then he stood me up. At that point I was a little tired of it, and the next time we talked, I told him so. He apologized over and over again and said, "It's completely understandable. It will never happen again, I promise." Then he signed off, and that was the last time I ever talked to him. He ignored me completely for the next two weeks, and then he deleted me on Facebook. It sort of broke my heart. I wanted so badly to be his friend, and he just threw it away. I sent him a message apologizing for anything I might have done. Nothing.

I was angry and depressed for a long time. Tom was so mad about it, he sort of went off on him via Facebook. I feel a little bad about not stopping Tom, but I was really hurt. It didn't help that Chris kept on (and still does from time to time) coming to our dorm to visit DR. I wouldn't actually see him, but my friends would. I just couldn't believe that he would come here after he did that to me. He had to know it hurt my feelings, and yet he was completely unaffected by the fact that if he came to my building, he might run into me. I even asked DR to find out why Chris stopped talking to me. He asked him, and he told me that Chris said he wasn't comfortable discussing his reasons with anyone.

I think he just freaked out a little bit. Our friendship was getting a little bit too comfortable, and there was too much room for error. He once expressed to me that a lot of people think he comes off as an asshole. I really think he's just incapable of fully committing himself to being a good friend, and when I told him it upset me that he stood me up, he couldn't deal with the responsibility of my emotional responses. I feel bad for Chris. Relationships are very obviously difficult for him. I miss talking to him.

I ended up seeing him when he was hanging out with DR about two weeks ago. I was outside smoking with Kile, and he was leaving our building. He passed within a foot of me. He didn't even look at me. But DR said something to me, so it's not like he didn't notice or something. Sigh.

Everything happens for a reason. I'm using this blogpost as a farewell. It was an interesting experience, you know? Maybe someday he'll try to get into contact with me again. I'll ask him if my aura is still one of the brightest he's ever seen, and then I will expect nothing from him. Lesson learned.