Help! I hate my best friend's girlfriend!

What do I do, now that I have to lie to the one person I could always be honest with?

 I’ve been wanting to blog about this for awhile but I’ve had no idea how to approach this sensitive problem.  So I turned to the internet for help.

This is what I came up with.

I like it.  Especially the line graph, that’s eerily accurate.

My best friend is male and has known me for years.  He may be neurotypical, but I’ve never felt like I’ve had to explain myself to him for any reason.  Such friendships are rare these days.

Him getting a girlfriend – and changing the friendship dynamic – is something I was going to have to deal with at sometime.  The self entitled part of my personality doesn’t like it but realistically, it’s well within his right to do so, and I was just going to have to be supportive.

Well, recently that’s precisely what happened.  The BFF took me aside and told me about a girl he’d met, let’s call her Ali, and that he wanted the three of us to hang out.  He told me that she’s an older woman, attractive, and they had been hooking up.  He then showed me this text message:

Hey babe, buying scarves 4 all the bite marks u left on me xx ;)

Ewwwww.  Ok, WTF?  Even I know sharing sexy texts with your best mates is bad manners.  But it did at least give me a mild warning for what I would be subjected to the next day.

So, the next day at BFF’s place, I’m awaiting her arrival, hoping I make an ok impression.  Given that I would be spending a lot of time around this girl, it would make things awkward if she didn’t like me.

Then when she arrived I did, I’ll admit, nearly screw things up immediately.

Ali:  *sensuously* hey babe, like my new scarf?

Me:  *hysterical laughter*

The BFF shot me an alarmed look and I remembered I wasn’t supposed to know why that was funny…oops.

We were introduced and then she started talking.  All I could think was “please God, make it stop.”

Look, they say it takes one to know one, right?  I knew straight away that this girl was all sorts of issues.  Now I am the last person to place blame on someone for being mentally ill.  What I don’t like is when someone is mentally unstable, does nothing about it, and then inflicts their illness on others to get attention.

Ali’s conversation has a certain pattern – we talk about her being injured/ill/overwhelmed.  Then we hear about how she heroically over came set obstacle.  Then we hear an ‘interesting’ fact about something she’s good at.  It’s always on her – if conversation moves away from her, she brings it back somehow.  And it’s always the heavy stuff.  In the space of about 3 hours, I found this about her  -

-          she’s asthmatic

-          she was hospitalized for whooping cough for two weeks

-          She had surgery on her hip and couldn’t walk for six months

-          She’s dyslexic

-          She has OCD (allegedly)

-          She has celiac disease (allegedly)

-          She has ehland syndrome

-          She has chronic hiccups (allegedly)

-          She was once hospitalized for a nervous breakdown (oh I’m sorry, that is not something you should find out about someone you’ve just met!)

-          She has had various breaks and sprains that impacted her detrimentally (too many to name here)

Basically, the girl’s self esteem is so poor she needs attention and validation constantly.  See, this is also what I know about her, that the BFF told me because she never talks about these things.    She is 25, but still lives at home.  She moved back there shortly after her last nervous breakdown and still hasn’t left.   She went to business college after high school, and has had countless office jobs but never for more than a few months.  This is probably why she had to move states and apply for university – had to go by open foundation because her grades from school weren’t good enough.

Ali’s life has been hard, I can admit. By portraying herself as a tragic heroine she creates more positive image of herself than the reality  - due to her physical and mental illnesses she’s an adult who never really grew up and learned to be independant.  I know so many like her.  Heck, I was her. Like me, she’s probably angry at herself for not working things out like most people our age have.

 Yet still she refuses to acknowledge her limitations and she puts herself in situations where she can’t win, because you’ve gotta love a girl for trying, haven’t you?

Ummmm…no.  Like I said, I can’t blame Ali for her hardship, but I can blame her for creating drama.  Now, let’s think back to that slide show from the lovely folks at college humour.  I would change one thing on their presentation to suit my circumstances, on slide three.

“You make my friend angry with your bull**** shenanigans.”

“then I have to deal with him.”

More like,

“You make my friend worry with your bull**** shenanigans.”

“Then I have to deal with him.  Not.  Cool.”

I suppose I should address the ‘allegedly’ I put on the list of Ali’s ailments.

I think she’s…well, not lying.  I believe she’s exaggerating within believable limits, if you will, to make some of her issues sound more serious.  If I didn’t have a medical background - and have some of these problems myself – I probably wouldn’t pick it up.  Although the fact that most of her problems seem to be self diagnosed should tip my friend off that Ali’s biggest health issue is her hypochondria (or Munchausen syndrome, I can’t tell at this point.)

But the BFF eats this all up and worries about her.  Then I have to listen to him worry.  Again, not.  Cool.

Later, I took the time to think about my feelings, and to figure out if my rising distaste for this girl was fair.  Was it just jealousy that I have to ‘share’ BFF with her?  Are my standards for a suitable girl for him just too high?  Or am I intimidated by her, that she openly and eagerly talks about her mental health battle, yet I don’t feel as though I can (and should) share mine?

I don’t know what our other friends think, and I’m too afraid to ask in case I am just being petty.  But one thing is for sure – I have to deal with her somehow, in a constructive way that doesn’t create tension with her or BFF.

Now, if I could just figure out how to be constructive.

Voyager

Top ten reasons to date a girl with Asperger’s Syndrome

Disclaimer:  I apologise for any individuals who do not fit this list, these are light-hearted generalisations based on myself and girls with AS in my acquaintance.  It is not meant as serious advice.

10.    We are not clingy.  Sick of girls who must know your whereabouts at all times?  Over her calling every day?  Had enough of her going ballistic because you waited two whole hours to respond to her text?  Then I can guarantee your girlfriend is neurotypical.  Girls with AS are an independent bunch.  We like spending time with you, really we do, but if you call more than a few times a week, we feel stifled.  If you are living with an AS girl, expect to be briefly acknowledged in the evenings before she goes off to pursue her own interests – meaning that you can too!  Oh and one date night a week is more than enough, thank you.

9. We like hugs.  No really.  With the recent rise of pamphlet psychiatrists in the world comes manyl broad misconceptions about individuals with AS.  One of the most widely believed and upsetting of these is that we hate physical contact of any kind.  Well fellas, while people with HFA frequently seem to, most if not all girls with AS that I have met would say that they love to be held.  In fact, because we often aren’t good at verbalising feelings, this is a great way for us to express how we feel about you but -

8. We do not overdo PDA.  As said before, we don’t mind a bit of hand holding or lap sitting with our one-and-only in polite company.  Spontaneity, however, is something we are not known for.  Don’t expect us to pounce on you mid sentence in a crowded room and start sucking your face off.  Not unless you want us too, anyway.

7. Buying us presents is easy.   Because of our restrictive cognitive functioning, we develop so - called ‘specific interests’, hobbies or subjects that take up a lot of our time and conversation.  Find out what our current interests are (should take about two minutes of conversation max) and buy us something related to that.  Relatively painless for you, we feel like you care – everyone wins.

6. We are always on time.  We have photographic memories and more often than not neurotic fears about being late, so we will always remember what time you intent to show up and how long it takes to get to the restaurant/cinema/party.  There’s none of this screwing about for half an hour putting on make up or finding the perfect pair of shoes to match the hand bag and accentuate my waist.  We’ll have figured this out long in advance and timed our prettification to be all done upon your arrival.

5. Looks are not a priority.  This prettification I mentioned in no. 6 is not extensive anyway.  We don’t spend a lot of time putting our faces on or choosing clothes.  The reasons for this are a combination of our aforementioned rigid cognition, motivation, poor self esteem and that tendency we have to feel like quietly rebelling against something.  So even if you spring an outing on us, you most likely won’t be waiting too long for us to get ready.  Also, this goes both ways.  You should be assured that we are dating you because of your personality.  We get used to being hated on by beautiful people so the main thing we find attractive is kindness and compassion.  So you don’t ever need to worry about not being cute, fashionable or buff enough for us.  Treat us right and you could be a swamp creature for all we notice.

4. Your friends belong to you alone.  When guys get together, there’s always one that insists upon bringing the girlfriend along, or she maybe she insists on being there.  She then proceeds to sit on the edge of the group, clinging resolutely to the boyfriends arm with one hand and texting or checking the nails of the other.  The only contributions to the conversation are a prissy lip curl in response to a dirty joke or a half hearted “that’s so funny.”  As for girls with AS, we prefer to stay away.  It’s not necessarily that we respect your right to your own space, or that we don’t erase all facets of a non shared life once we are in a relationship.  This sort of situation makes us uncomfortable, so we bow out and let boys be boys for awhile.

3. Change scares us.  How is that a good thing, you ask?  Well, sometimes it’s plain annoying, sure.  But it has its perks.  Namely, chances are a girl with AS will not be pressuring you to commit.  For most of us, changes in life that will shake up our day to day living in a big way, such as moving in, getting married and having children. make us nervous.   NT girls who are having nesting urges might be pressuring you to move in within a few weeks, to get engaged within months, and even to have children within a year or two.  Not so with the AS afflicted female.  If things are comfortable in the relationship we are perfectly happy to stay in that situation for years.  That’s not to say that we won’t commit under the right circumstances.  If you think you are at that stage with your AS girl, make sure you move slowly.

2. We do not read minds.  Ok, NT girls don’t either.  The difference is, we don’t pretend to just to stir you up.  From your NT girlfriend, you are far more likely to hear things like:

“You think I’m fat!”

“I know you’re angry…”

“I know you still like her…”

The average adult with AS comes with shattered self esteem.  We spend our whole lives being assured that it is impossible for us to empathise with the thoughts of others.  As a result, we still draw conclusions about behaviours of yours we don’t understand, but we don’t trust our own instincts.  If you do something we just don’t get, we will ask you about it out right.

1. We try really, really hard.  Anyone with a disability is constantly made to feel like a second class citizen and a burden on their loved ones on a daily basis.  If you give us a chance, we will try our best to make you happy.

 Love always,

Voyager