Gary, 25, with Hypersocial Disorder, Gets Homework from the Employment Services
The Autistic Planet, ch. 1
This story is based on my article “What If Autistic People Were the Majority?” I recommend you read it first if you haven’t already:
Gary wasn’t happy. He was unemployed and lived in his parents’ basement.
On top of that, Gary had hypersocial disorder (HSD). The assignments he got from the employment services sucked for him extra hard.
And now they had sent Gary an e-mail.
Damned it. Why do the employment services only communicate by e-mail? Gary thought. I can’t even see their facial expressions or hear their voices.
Gary read the e-mail.
You need to solve this crossword puzzle. Send it back to us by 1 pm next Tuesday.
This won’t help you get employed. You have HSD, and you talk too much, so nobody’s going to hire you, probably.
But it’s a rule that unemployed people have to do something. So, do the crossword puzzle.
Crosswords! Why couldn’t they even offer a support group or something? Gary was sick of sitting at home.
Autistic people probably loved solving crossword puzzles alone at home! The employment services only served them, not people like Gary who wanted to go out and meet people.
Gary printed out the crossword. He tried to solve the puzzle, but he just couldn’t focus.
Doing puzzles alone was so tedious! Besides, all the words in the puzzle were about unicorns. So typical.
Unicorns were a special interest of the employment officer who generated these puzzles. She sent Gary unicorn-themed puzzles week after week. The previous week Gary had had to color a unicorn coloring picture.
Gary couldn’t take it anymore. He called his friend Brad.
Gary had met Brad in a support group for people with hypersocial disorder. Brad had got fired from his job as a warehouse worker because he had attempted small talk with his boss. The boss had decided Brad wasn’t “the right fit for the job”.
Brad answered the phone right away.
“Wassup, B-Boy?” Gary greeted.
“Nothing much, G-Boy. Trying to solve a crossword puzzle here. Boring as hell.”
“Why don’t you come over to my place? We could help each other solve these freakin’ puzzles and have a couple of beers after”, Gary suggested.
Brad came in 20 minutes. He lived nearby in his uncle’s garage.
Gary and Brad executed a quick fist punch greeting followed by a man hug.
“So, you got a puzzle to solve too?” Gary asked.
“Yeah, all the words in this puzzle are about astronomy! It’s space stuff week after week. My employment officer has a special interest in space, you see.”
“You’re lucky! I have to solve crosswords about unicorns! I’d switch into space stuff anytime”, Gary complained.
“Shall we swap assignments, then? Let’s see how well you do with astronomy.”
Gary agreed. The friends sat in front of Gary’s desk and started working on the puzzles.
“This crossword is so easy! You didn’t even know that unicorn is the national animal of Scotland?”
Brad solved the unicorn puzzle in no time. Gary hadn’t managed to solve a single word in his crossword puzzle. How was he supposed to know what was “a point with an infinite value”? Or what was a pulsar?
“This is too hard, B-boy! We need to ask my dad for help. He’s a space freak. This puzzle is a piece of cake for him”, Gary said.
“Yeah, I guess we’d better do that. I couldn’t solve that space shit either. But the unicorn puzzle was easy. I can’t believe you didn’t know what a baby unicorn is called!”
“Maybe you should play with ponies then, considering you know so much about unicorns!” Gary snapped.
“Hey, relax, man. I’m just joking here. Don’t be so autistic”, Brad said.
“If I was autistic, this whole unemployment thing wouldn’t suck so much! I’m bored to death solving crosswords here in the basement.”
“I know, it’s not a lot of fun in my uncle’s garage either. It’s cold as hell, too”, Brad admitted. “My uncle won’t let me stay inside the house because he says I talk too much.”
Gary went silent for 30 seconds. That rarely happened because he loved the sound of his own voice more than anything else.
Gary had a vision.
“Have you ever thought what it would be like if people like you and I were the majority? You know, people with the hypersocial disorder?”
“Not really. I haven’t done that much thinking since I started smoking pot”, Brad said.
“Think about it! We would have socializing booths in public places. You know, cubicles that people could enter to socialize. Just like that, spontaneously!”
“Wow, man. That’s deep.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in”, Gary said.
It was Sharon, Gary’s mom.
Sharon was an attractive woman with blonde hair. She had a tray with two teacups and chocolate chip cookies on a plate.
“Here’s some tea and cookies for you hardworking boys!”
“Thanks, mom”, Gary said, delighted.
“Thank you, Mrs. Miller”, Brad said.
“Oh, please, Brad, just call me Sharon!” Sharon insisted. “What are you boys working on?”
“Crosswords. Can you believe it, mom? That’s what the employment services are making us do”, Gary said.
“Well, that’s just ridiculous! That support group has been much more helpful for you than those silly employment services”, Sharon said. “Oh, by the way, I noticed that Gary’s interview had been published! Have you read that yet, Brad?”
“Yeah, I did. That was deep.”
“Yes. It is good that people talk about this hypersocial disorder these days. But the perspective of the article was a bit condescending. It seemed like the reporter was painting a picture of my son as some sort of prodigy!”
“Come on, mom. The article was OK”, Gary said.
“Well, if you’re happy with it, I’m happy. But I do think that the reporter should work on her attitude. Gary here is a clever boy, and so are you, Brad. The hypersocial disorder thing doesn’t mean you boys couldn’t take care of yourselves like any grown-ups.”
Brad was staring at a wall with a blank expression on his face. Gary thought that was better than Brad staring at Gary’s mom’s boobs. He did that sometimes.
“Well, I’ll leave you, boys, to it”, Sharon said and left.
“My mom has a point, though”, Gary thought out loud. (That was the only type of thinking he was capable of, thanks to his HSD.) “Maybe we should start demanding more rights for people with HSD. No more crosswords!”
The story continues in chapter 2.
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