Chapter Forty-Three: The Story of Angel

It was during one of the weekly expatriate café meetups that I first met Angel. She and another lady, Alexis, were the unofficial leaders of the group and coordinated most of the downtown expatriate events. Angel had sent me an email some months back, shortly after my arrival, to welcome me and let me know that she had a daughter, Isobelle, the same age as my son Isaac. She’d been unable to attend the first month or two of café gatherings I’d come to but commented on how was looking forward to meeting me. It was a very welcoming gesture.

When I first met her in the café, I observed that she was quiet and understated. She appeared formal but simply dressed, with no makeup that stood out to me and long, straight, brown hair parted in the middle. Her face was plain, but overall, she was somehow still quite attractive.

At first, it seemed that perhaps she didn’t have a lot to say other than the usual small talk about the weather and simple chit chat; however, as I got to know her, I came to see that she was very much a thinker and analyzer. In fact, she was unusually intelligent in the art of perceiving, understanding, and influencing others.

One day at the weekly lunch, Angel asked me if I wanted to organize some play dates with the kids, so it came about that we began meeting every Thursday afternoon, either at her house or mine. To me, it seemed a reciprocal and positive experience for both the kids and adults involved.

Much later in time—jumping forward for a second—Angel would describe the experience to me as her “reaching out to me to help me” and tell me that the friendship wasn’t really enjoyable to her at any point. However, I definitely hadn’t picked up any sense of inequality at the time, and I’m usually quick to pick up on those sorts of signals. I study people. So I wonder if it really was because she was that good at acting warm and friendly or if it was hindsight biasing her memories.

I had a few deeper conversations with Angel during this one-on-one time where I expressed my frustrations at how long it was taking me to find “real” friends and settle into a social pattern. It was a hard time in my life, and the issue of isolation had become a focus for me. Angel was most empathetic and pointed out that most of the other ladies had arrived in groups, and I was one of the last to be sent across before the company had decided to limit overseas moves. By the time I arrived, most other expatriates were busy and well settled in. It was bound to be challenging.

She also invited Isaac and me to come join her family for dinner every second Friday when my husband was away at university. Robert, despite my objections, had started an MBA at Tulane, which took him out of the house Friday evenings and most of Saturday and also required extra time for studying and group meetings. My protests that he was away too much had gone unheard, so now I was struggling to cope with not five but six twelve-hour days alone.

The dinners broke up the long, most difficult days, and watching Isaac play with Isobelle and Angel’s husband, Hayden, made me smile. With so little family and friends around, I was so relieved for Isaac to have other regular adults in his life, and I really valued this time.

Hayden was fantastic with the children and especially entertaining to watch as he invented games that made them giggle and squeal. They emptied Angel’s Tupperware out of her cupboards and made great wet messes with the little splash trough she had outside on her deck. Hayden was a fantastic cook and baked homemade gourmet pizzas and other tasty meals to share with us.

Things seemed to be going well for me on that level, at least. Then one day, I made a brave decision to talk to Angel about Asperger’s Syndrome… and that’s when something went wrong. I’ll never be sure exactly what, but something did, and it was very wrong.

My decision to talk to Angel about Asperger’s came after many months of researching the condition and keeping it to myself. At first, I hadn’t told anyone but my husband about this idea I had, because after all, how do you bring up such a personal topic to somebody you’re only just getting to know when you’re not even sure yourself what’s going on? Angel was the only local person I spoke to regularly (Paula wasn’t regularly in the picture yet), so there wasn’t anyone else for me to open up to.

However, in late September 2010, when I went to the first of my two official diagnostic sessions, I was left just buzzing with things to say. So many unexplained troubles in my life had been suddenly and so simply explained in the course of just a few hours talking to a counselor. I no longer had any doubt that I had Asperger’s. I couldn’t believe the revelations I’d had.

I decided that Angel was a person I trusted enough to share this incredible discovery with. With my mind racing with a combination of relief, sadness, and a hint of annoyance for everything I’d gone through unnecessarily, I wrote to her to organize a meetup.

In my buzz, I also wrote a post on Facebook saying I needed a friendly ear. My friend Carina from the hotel asked me if I wanted to drive up and see her, so I jumped on the invitation and went up to her house the next day. So in the end, I found two people to talk with. I’ll discuss how things went with Carina a bit later in the book, but her response was pretty straightforward.

With Angel, however, things suddenly became confusing. I made a time to come see her at her house the day after I met up with Carina, and I had a long chat with her about Asperger’s and what it meant for me. I went into detail on some little things that have been challenging for me, my past, my difficulties with the current group settings, and how I’d been lonely here.

As with Carina, I was doing most of the talking that day, but it seemed to go down okay. I told her all about the diagnostic process and how I was looking forward to hearing the results. And admittedly, I probably did get a bit teary that day as I was confiding in her about some of my past hardships and might have Aspie’d her with a few too many depressing details.

After all, after just finding out about my AS, it was hard not to feel a degree of self-pity over the various ways I’d had to suffer unnecessarily in life, at least temporarily. So once I started on the topic, I was so relieved to just tell someone, I couldn’t stop talking. I know I could hear myself going on and on, but it was like releasing the valve on the bottom of a water tank. It just had to come out! But Angel was patient with me, and it made me feel a lot better. I walked away feeling positive about giving her an update next week.

The next week, Angel rang me and asked if I minded her adding a few additional ladies to our playgroup that Thursday. I agreed it was fine, as I thought I could benefit from making one or two more friends in a more intimate environment. It would be an initial effort, but I assessed it to be worth the cost. I thought perhaps she was even trying to help me get to know some of the other ladies in this smaller setting. Then, suddenly, the group was very large. It was a little more than I’d expected.

Angel also mentioned to me that she was having trouble accommodating all the ladies on the Thursday and wanted to move the day of the week. I replied that that was fine with me so long as it wasn’t a Tuesday. Tuesday mornings, I had my Playgroup B mums’ group, the only other thing on my schedule, and with Isaac’s sleep patterns as they were, I couldn’t realistically attend both. Not to mention how exhausting that would be for me!

Within two weeks of our initial discussion, the playgroup had been moved to a Tuesday, and I was told, “Sorry, but I can’t please everybody, and I had to make a decision,” and that my reasons were less compelling than the other ladies’. As a founder of the group, I was disappointed and felt it was rather inconsiderate toward me. But as I knew these ladies better than the Playgroup B people, I decided to drop my group B and come along anyway. Angel reassured me that it was nothing to do with me, and “as a leader, sometimes you have to make tough calls.”

After that, there seemed to be a lot of other little things happening that made it difficult for me to attend, but always for a good reason. I mentioned to Angel once that (now pregnant with Trent) I was having an issue with making it to the furthest parks without a bathroom. My bladder wasn’t holding up to the drive back. By coincidence, the group that week was permanently moved to the park furthest from me, one that happened not to have a bathroom.

Of course, it was because it had a splash area and the kids were enjoying the water in the heat of summer, and I did hear comments from some of the other ladies on how much they liked that park.

One week, construction work was going on, and a port-a-loo was put up temporarily. I told Angel I was looking forward to coming along, as I hadn’t been in a while. That week, she sent out an email to the group suggesting we could either go to the park or better, to a friend Tiffany’s pool instead, and requested people ring Tiffany if they planned to go.

I didn’t usually attend the pool gatherings nor did I like ringing people (as Angel knew), but I was so keen to see people, I rang Tiffany and arranged to come anyway. The email had implied that the pool was the option of choice. Later in the day, Tiffany rang me back to ask if I wanted to cancel, as I was the only one who’d replied. It turned out Angel had contacted the regulars privately and organized for them to meet at the park after all. I guess she didn’t include me.

Previously, Angel and I had spent the odd Wednesday morning at the Children’s Museum of Houston together with the kids. From that Wednesday onward, she invited along another lady, Ebony, and they talked closely while I seemed to be always off to the side.

Now, it’s most likely that my separation here was due to my difficulties joining in on a three-way conversation in the loud setting with the distraction of kids than any sort of specific exclusion, but it all added up to one pattern. Angel was never alone with me again (barring the two catch ups discussed below) and never had to “talk” to me about anything personal again.

One day, for no apparent reason, she sent me the details of a few other mums’ groups in the area she thought I might “like to join” (instead). I hadn’t indicated that I wished to join anywhere else.

Now, am I imagining all this, or was I being pushed out? Certainly, each thing that happened (and many other little such things) wasn’t, on its own, something I would think too much of. Some of them, I’m sure, didn’t mean anything. But all put together, it was adding up to something odd, and it would seem that at the least she was certainly being inconsiderate of me—me, who she knew was challenged already and was going to be strongly affected by her actions. It did seem a rather unfriendly thing to do.

But all the while, Angel was positive and warm in person and assured me that we were good friends. It made me so confused, and I found myself questioning my ability to even read the situation.

While I still had faith in her, I tried reaching out via email and explaining to her that I still wanted one-on-one time occasionally. I sent her a short paragraph written by Tony Attwood explaining why it’s hard for an Aspie to follow a larger group conversation. I thought it would help her understand. But she didn’t seem interested and explained she was unable to accommodate me. She was “too busy” by then.

When we did catch a moment, she gave me a lot of advice on things I should say or do with other people to make friends while keeping me at arm’s length herself. Eventually, I did manage to corner her to have a proper talk about what was going on. The feeling of separation had been bothering me, and I needed to resolve it by talking things through.

At first, Angel repeated that everything was good and that we were friends. But when I pressed her about one-on-one time, she eventually confessed that she didn’t like talking to me alone. She said I talked too much about myself and was frustrating to try and “help.” She explained that I didn’t ask other people enough questions to follow up on their lives or put enough effort into the friendship and so on, with various other reasons why I wasn’t that fun to be friends with.

Of course, it was said in a kind, positive context, as if she were the good guy helping me with constructive criticism. I’m sure my paraphrasing of it sounds far, far more negative than the way it was conveyed, but I guess that’s how I heard it. And then that was the last one-on-one gathering I ever managed to make with her.

I guess I’ll never know if it was the knowledge of my Asperger’s Syndrome that put her off or just my lack of gratitude and failure to respond to her attempts to “fix” me. She said her driver was wanting to help people, though I imagine having others who think you’re a wonderful, selfless, and altruistic person whom they are indebted to could be the more appealing part. I wasn’t changing in response to her advice or acting grateful but instead was resisting and trying to explain why the changes didn’t and couldn’t work for me. She didn’t want to hear those explanations.

I’m also perhaps not the sort of person who is good at showing gratitude in the conventional happy, flowery ways. I suppose this does look unappreciative to someone who doesn’t understand me well.

Anyway, after our chat, some of her words really sank in and started to get me down, because the things she pointed out were mostly my Aspie tendencies. It got into my head and made me start doubting my worth as a person. I couldn’t completely help the faults she was highlighting. After all, they’re part of what being an Aspie embodies. But in her eyes, such traits were deal breakers, and no one could ever be friends with such a person. Would I never really be likable to anybody as myself? She certainly seemed to think not.

I suddenly needed to get out of there and went on an impromptu holiday to Australia to see my old friends. It was rushed, I know, but with me so depressed at home, I suggested it, and Robert just made it happen. I don’t think I even said goodbye to many of the ladies in Houston or told them I was leaving. It was a quick decision, and I was down and not in the mood to act happy or bring it up with people. And thank heavens I went home. It made a lot of difference.

Being back in Australia reminded me that there are many people who value me for who I am, differences and all. I was reassured that, thankfully, Angel’s view wasn’t shared by everyone. Angel was seeing her vision of who she thought I should be and the deficit between that and who I was. But she wasn’t seeing the good in who I was. She’s never seen my cheeky humor or how I engage with others when I’m happy. She doesn’t know what a loyal and compassionate friend I can be. She just saw that I didn’t fit into the mold of what she looks for in a person and completely failed to value the rest.

When I came back, Angel seemed to have “forgotten” completely about the Friday dinners or making any contact with me at all, and she never did ask me anything about my Asperger’s or the results of my diagnosis. I guess for all the talk of being friends, she wasn’t really interested in hearing about me. But she remained exceptionally friendly and enthusiastic in her chats to me whenever I saw her in the group. Any onlooker would have thought we were best buddies!