Pine needles and ping pong
Finding myself jogging towards groups and then sprinting away.
The AC belonging to the upstairs neighbor drips onto our AC. Is it coincidence we chose to put our window units in the same window in our units? Based on when the dripping starts, they seem to rise later than us. If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine the drips falling from pine needles onto a chilly tin roof, not from a device we use to cope with the standard of living in The Greatest City in the World. But there are larger reasons why I live here. Purpose. Buildings. A neuropsychologist qualified to make an autism diagnosis (and that accepts my insurance!) a short walk away.
The AC drip was a topic of conversation at an “Aspie” meetup I attended a few times. One of the attendees said they recently bought a mat to put on the top of their AC to dampen the sound the rain makes when it hits the white metal box. This made me smile, not because I do the same, but because it seemed totally reasonable. Even though I don’t have that particular sound sensitivity, it was definitely a room of people like me. Then one guy talked too much and I went home.
I’m not sure what my point here is. Air conditioning is a luxury, definitely. But more than that, group conversations are the bane of my existence, the fatal flaw in my social armor. I’m hesitant to open this topic because I worry once I do it will be the only thing I write about.
The arc of my life as I have experienced group conversations has been something like this:
I’m quiet.
I’m not quiet!
I’m quiet but I’m at peace with it.
I’m quiet and I hate it.
I would be A-OK to never participate in a group conversation again.
My autism diagnosis came distinctly in era number 4 and led to era number 5. Era number 3 would appear to be the healthiest but was absolutely the shortest of the eras. Yet I crave era number 2. My inner self was on full display, allowed to come out and play. This lasted about six years and cemented the modern conception of self I still chase and often fail to reach. At least for the last few years, I have failed to reach this ideal while holding an official PDF that says my brain works a bit differently.
Katherine May captures this duality in her book The Electricity of Every Living Thing: “I struggle to join up the two versions of myself: the one I believed in, and that one that existed for everyone else.” This perfectly illustrates the chaos in my mind when I’m in a group. I will be having a good time bouncing words off one or two people and then the group will sit down and I will feel stuck and go quiet. One therapist described my needs in conversation as a game of ping pong; most group conversations between adults feel more like a game of musical chairs with very few chairs.
Another description is: I need to feel invited in. Which is kind of true but like most things becomes meaningless once the nuance is lost. Being invited in by a facilitator who has never spoken to me before would fail to make me feel chipper and cheery to participate. But when a confident person who happens to take up space and who I also have a positive personal relationship with includes me, it can work because I can act like we’re having a 1:1 conversation just with a little extra performing for others.
It’s probably clear by now how it is not possible for me to discuss how I communicate in groups without going DEEP into the weeds. Sometimes the key is geometric: I said yes to a low-key birthday gathering at work recently when I thought it was going to be 4 people standing around a filing cabinet and bailed when I learned it was 8 people seated at a cafe. I don’t fault the organizer for not being aware that one of those settings works for me and the other does not.
I’ll close for now with a multi-level example: early in my career I was on a board for young people in my industry. Several people invited me to join and I genuinely thought it would be a place I could thrive. As you can probably guess by now, ten of us around a table once a month did not work for me. If I became friends with our chair, maybe things would have been different, but it didn’t turn out that way. I gave effort for about the first two months of our year-long term. At drinks after one of the meetings, I was having a conversation with the chair and it was distinctly FINE. We were gripping our ping pong paddles, but not all the serves were making it over the net and the volleys were stunted. After a few minutes of a lethargic verbal game, he asked if I wanted to “join the group.” Which to me meant: stop talking to each other, move forward a few feet, and instead talk to no one.
What is there to do? Not go to drinks? Not help young people in my industry? Go lone wolf on everything? Write about it? I don’t know yet. But maybe, just maybe, sharing these thoughts helps someone out there feel a little less alone in their own journey.
Need space to talk?
A few times a month, I hold quiet 1:1 conversations with folks navigating change, isolation, or literally anything.
It’s not therapy or coaching. It’s just real talk.
New: Lake-Effect Coffee
My novella is out! Lake-Effect Coffee is a workplace satire about burnout, friendship, and starting over with a coffee van. If you’ve enjoyed these essays, I think you’ll love it.
Your honesty about the struggle between craving connection and finding comfort in solitude is incredibly relatable and insightful. Also I appreciate how you captured the complexities of group dynamics and the unique ways they impact your sense of self. Thank you for sharing your experiences with such clarity and depth. It's really comforting to know other people face similar struggles. Oh and the five things about how you experience group conversations are so relatable.