Worked six days this week and didn’t really love where this piece was going. Was afraid I’d have to leave ol’ Autismo here in the dust and skip a week. Happy I was able to crack down and finish it despite it all. But I feel I’ve been repeating myself these past few weeks. Would like to try and aim in a different direction. Don’t want this blog to be full of “woe is me look at how quirky and special I am”, just trying to get all of this out so I can focus on other stuff in the future. Hope you still like it though.
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I called my manager a cunt the other day. It was all in jest, I swear. He was refusing to keep an eye on the close staff – to make sure they do their job properly – so I’m not left with a major safety hazard in the morning. I felt bad about it at the time. I was right to call him a cunt though.
But I do just say these things sometimes. Most people get it. I feel one thing Aussies are known for is our lackadaisical attitude. We still find ourselves swooning over the ‘larrikin’, the coloniser whose eccentric approach to authority makes them this bogan counterpart to James Dean—a yobbo without a cause. It’s an archetype that I’ve fallen into over the years, despite my best efforts to be the gayest, most uptight motherfucker this side of the Southern Hemisphere. My accent thickens the longer you’ve known me, so I just sort of lean into it now. But I’ve been compared to all sorts of wacky characters. I’ve always had a bony figure, always had red circles around my eyes through lack of sleep. Combine that with long hair and the occasional “hell yeah, man” thrown into conversation and I unwittingly laid the groundwork for being compared to Jay and Silent Bob my entire life. People are often quite perplexed when they find out I fuckin hate smoking weed.
(Nothing wrong with it, just not for me personally, yanno? Gives me a headache.)
While I never gave Mary-Jane a fighting chance, having only smoked it after a phat night on the piss as a quick, clean K.O., I smoked it enough to fit in. I smoked at a Christmas party once, when I was 16. Smoked occasionally when I lived with stoners. And that’s about it. Ironically, I used to drink a lot when I lived with stoners. I used to drink a lot after I lived with stoners. I used to drink a lot from the ages of 18-21, as I’m sure most people did. I come from a family of drinkers, big beer-bellied men who rough and tumble with one another in a way that, were they not bound by blood, most would consider flirtatious. I’d never partake in their homoerotic play-fighting, I’d just try to drink a lot. Some days, I was able to keep up. On others, I’d pretend that I was, and that enough to keep them happy. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed drinking. Probably a little too much, if you asked some of my friends. But I was also acutely aware that drinking, for me, in most social situations, was mandatory.
My therapist would call it people pleasing, but I prefer to look at it as adapting to your environment. Blending in with my surroundings. Or, you know, as much as a queer theatre kid can blend in. I always felt a bit out of place wherever I went, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, couldn’t hit the hammer directly on the head, so I just put on different hats in hopes that I’d find one that would fit. After a while, it became nauseating. I’ve been a bit of a recluse as of late and refrained from putting on as many hats. Let my hair down, if you will.
Turns out, I’m a bit of a prick. I’m blunt, people can’t tell if I’m being sarcastic or serious, I usually hyper fixate on trivial details in a conversation that ultimately don’t matter and I’m never really on the same page as everyone else. It’s a funny feeling to come to terms with that. Not that I believe I’m a bad person, but it’s always been easier in the short-term to put on a face in front of everyone, chameleon myself as much as I can.
I remember I was in a theatre production, a musical, just after I’d finished high school. Little Miss Sunshine: The Musical. Weird as fuck but it worked. I played Dwayne, the mopey emo who takes a vow of silence until he fulfills his dreams of becoming a pilot. It was a lot of fun to do, and that whole experience is still something I hold dear to my heart. As community theatre productions tend to go, however, it was propped up by a tightknit group of queers who had sort of cannibalised the space by casting a bunch of people they already knew and called upon their spouses to fill certain roles. The director and the lead actor were married. Rehearsals would quickly turn into light-hearted, albeit show-stopping family bicker.
It only took about 20 minutes for this to start, finding the tiniest micro-aggressions and slingshotting them across the stage in the most professional manner. It’d go on and on and on. “You’re being all autismo, just cut it out,” the director said. And they both shut up real quick. I don’t doubt this was all run of mill and didn’t result in a major rift between the two, but it was awkward to look at. Everyone in the cast had a chuckle to try and alleviate the situation. I didn’t really know what to do in the moment and just stayed silent. The scene played out naturally after that.
I was 17, going on 18, undiagnosed at that point, and genuinely thought the name was quite funny. Autismo. Like a dog’s name, or a robot sidekick. I would use the word flippantly, almost derogatory. I still use it sometimes. To separate myself from everyone else, because it’s easier to stifle yourself than it is to be genuine. To conform. To stay in character. To become an archetype, a repetitive universal pattern, an algorithm, a robot, Autismo.
Bea's Soapbox 