Youthful Blossom

CHAPTER 14: Social Skills

I was full of agog for the new school year because I wanted to continue improving my social skills and to leave behind the dark summer I had just gone through, but for the first couple of days, I had failed. I was not able to make any friends, let alone socialize. I was disappointed in myself because I wanted to be as social as everyone else so that I would have friends and not be lonely, as loneliness took over my life, at the time. I had yet to know about my autism for being the reason why I lacked social skills. When I was a kid in elementary school, I talked a lot, but inappropriately. A lot of children in school had told me that I didn't make sense. My wording seemed strange to them. I was a very curious kid who loved to talk about his own interests and pushed away everyone else. I barely felt interested in what others had said as some autistic people tend to have little to no interest in what others say, so we may appear selfish, when really it's just that our brains have smaller social networks than neurotypicals.
But, I barely knew of this back in August 2019. If I had known, then I wouldn't have forced myself to do something that I wasn't meant for because I would understand why I was the way I was. I thought I lacked social skills because I hadn't made friends in years ever since my mental health took a shift in 2015. But, that wasn't the case. Those friends from my childhood weren't really friends to begin with. They were just people that I talked to, who found me annoying. So, during the start of the school year, I had lost hope. I thought I was going to be lonely forever until August 19, 2019, when a very-dynamic girl named Jordan Thorpe spoke to me while we were outside for a walk with our health class. She was exactly the friend I had been looking for my entire life. She was amiable, empathic, and funny. She had asked me for my name and asked why I didn't talk much. She thought I was just shy but I told her that I hadn't made friends in a long time, without knowing that I actually had Asperger's syndrome or ASD. Since then, she talked to me every time we had our health class as we had it every two days. We started texting on Instagram about some things that we liked, including our school crushes. She liked this boy who she said looked like a Greek God while I liked a friend of hers who was in our health class. She was the most reliable person I could talk to as she was very friendly. I didn't think being myself around her was going to turn her away, especially as she was convivial. I was older, so I knew some things to say and not to say from what I had learned from the internet. Jordan was my first true in-real-life friend. I felt wanted, loved, and cared for by her. I didn't feel worthless anymore. We texted even more when I decided to use Snapchat and sent each other pictures, but mostly it was her who sent pictures of herself as I felt insecure to take pictures of myself. I sometimes had lunch with Jordan and her friends at their table, but I barely spoke. I wanted to be just like a neurotypical. Being social seemed fun from what I had observed in TV shows and movies, but words wouldn't come out of me naturally. I tried my best to talk to Jordan, though and tried to at least say a hello to her friends at the table. One of her friends though didn't like how I had a seat at the table as there was no more seats available for her to sit. I heard her say that she didn't know why I sat at the table if I didn't even talk. She was behind me. I told Jordan about it on Snapchat later that day and told her that one of her friends, a blonde girl, had said something hurtful behind me. The girl's words made me feel like a failure. I thought, "Why wasn't I getting better at socializing with people?" I thought I was "normal" when I was a kid as I talked a lot, and people with Asperger's syndrome can be talkative, but I didn't socialize properly. I hadn't thought about it at the time though, so I just thought that was I "normal" until my mental health darkened in 2015, which I thought affected the way I socialized with people. But, it never was the reason why.
To this day in 2021, I still contact Jordan through social media, especially on Snapchat. We haven't seen each other since late October 2019, but we remain great friends. I had never been so close to a human being in real life, so I always saw Jordan as someone special. She reminded me of a friend I had in third grade, who I sometimes offended but also confided with. They both were friendly and also white girls with blonde hair, except that Jordan's white and Asian mixed, which makes her even more interesting. Jordan even likes aliens and UFOs, so that's a bonus to our friendship!