Is it me or does Charlie do this a lot--find a girl who treats him in a friendly manner, and then develop a massive crush based on the fact that he's reading friendliness as love? It seems as if this is the third or fourth time this has happened.
I can't offer any advice because, well, I'm ace. At thirteen, I didn't want a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and the girls in my eighth-grade class who wanted to date (which was a minority) just talked about hugging and kissing, which didn't sound like much. And at thirteen, I knew that I had at least five years before falling in love could translate into getting married.
I wasn't thinking about sex. I figured that with my shitty luck, I'd get knocked up the first time I had sex and then my parents would throw me out on my ear. (I wasn't being melodramatic. My parents had warned me that they would do this if I got pregnant.) And then I'd be stuck being pregnant and sick for nine months before I could sign the kid away to some adoption agency. And since I was taking rather strong anticonvulsant meds, although not as strong as the ones I take now, I knew there was a good chance that any child of mine would have severe physical and/or intellectual limitations. None of which seemed like anything to wish on a kid.
(I knew nothing about protection. I didn't even hear about condoms until I ran across the kids selling their fathers' condoms at the candy machine in high school.)
So sex, even if I had wanted it, was out. And I knew of no other point to having a boyfriend or girlfriend at thirteen. You could enjoy each other's company just as much if you were friends than if you were dating, and if you got into an argument, you didn't have to worry "OMG HAVE WE BROKEN UP?" Because friends do fight, and it's considered normal.
For the girls who did date, dating was more of a status thing. It didn't seem to be about getting a guy that you loved but about getting a guy that everyone else found...covet-able. They didn't want to date their male best friends or the boy they'd been playing with since pre-nursery school. They wanted the good-looking boy, the jock, the popular dude, the boy who could score things like tickets to a rock concert on short notice.
Whether the status business is normal or was peculiar to my neighborhood, I don't know.
There is one thing, however, that I can completely understand Charlie being confused about--the idea that he can "make" a girl love him. That's because most books, TV shows and movies about relationships embrace that belief. In romance, especially in YA lit and romantic comedies, it doesn't matter if the Significant Other isn't interested, is with someone else, is pledged to God or actively trying to get away from the person pursuing him/her. And, in most cases, it IS a her. Once a guy finds the "right" girl, he's supposed to climb the highest mountain, swim the widest sea, slay a dragon and lay it at her feet, give her the Golden Apples of the Hesperides and generally chase her until she gives in and realizes that yes, she IS supposed to be with him forever and ever, amen.
I would say that 80% to 90% of the books and films and TV shows out there normalize stalking or treat it as a sign of love.
This is confusing enough on its own. Add in autism and--well, this must be nightmarishly bewildering for Charlie. Society keeps telling him to pursue the girl of his dreams and to MAKE her love him--and that if she's trying to be nice or let him down easily, she will come to love him if he just doesn't give up. But his experiences with being perceived as "creepy" are telling him something totally different.
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I can't offer any advice because, well, I'm ace. At thirteen, I didn't want a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and the girls in my eighth-grade class who wanted to date (which was a minority) just talked about hugging and kissing, which didn't sound like much. And at thirteen, I knew that I had at least five years before falling in love could translate into getting married.
I wasn't thinking about sex. I figured that with my shitty luck, I'd get knocked up the first time I had sex and then my parents would throw me out on my ear. (I wasn't being melodramatic. My parents had warned me that they would do this if I got pregnant.) And then I'd be stuck being pregnant and sick for nine months before I could sign the kid away to some adoption agency. And since I was taking rather strong anticonvulsant meds, although not as strong as the ones I take now, I knew there was a good chance that any child of mine would have severe physical and/or intellectual limitations. None of which seemed like anything to wish on a kid.
(I knew nothing about protection. I didn't even hear about condoms until I ran across the kids selling their fathers' condoms at the candy machine in high school.)
So sex, even if I had wanted it, was out. And I knew of no other point to having a boyfriend or girlfriend at thirteen. You could enjoy each other's company just as much if you were friends than if you were dating, and if you got into an argument, you didn't have to worry "OMG HAVE WE BROKEN UP?" Because friends do fight, and it's considered normal.
For the girls who did date, dating was more of a status thing. It didn't seem to be about getting a guy that you loved but about getting a guy that everyone else found...covet-able. They didn't want to date their male best friends or the boy they'd been playing with since pre-nursery school. They wanted the good-looking boy, the jock, the popular dude, the boy who could score things like tickets to a rock concert on short notice.
Whether the status business is normal or was peculiar to my neighborhood, I don't know.
There is one thing, however, that I can completely understand Charlie being confused about--the idea that he can "make" a girl love him. That's because most books, TV shows and movies about relationships embrace that belief. In romance, especially in YA lit and romantic comedies, it doesn't matter if the Significant Other isn't interested, is with someone else, is pledged to God or actively trying to get away from the person pursuing him/her. And, in most cases, it IS a her. Once a guy finds the "right" girl, he's supposed to climb the highest mountain, swim the widest sea, slay a dragon and lay it at her feet, give her the Golden Apples of the Hesperides and generally chase her until she gives in and realizes that yes, she IS supposed to be with him forever and ever, amen.
I would say that 80% to 90% of the books and films and TV shows out there normalize stalking or treat it as a sign of love.
This is confusing enough on its own. Add in autism and--well, this must be nightmarishly bewildering for Charlie. Society keeps telling him to pursue the girl of his dreams and to MAKE her love him--and that if she's trying to be nice or let him down easily, she will come to love him if he just doesn't give up. But his experiences with being perceived as "creepy" are telling him something totally different.