In my very first Faking Normal article, I wrote about pretending to be untroubled by another person’s decision to buy an odd number of oranges at the grocery store. I like even-numbered things, and it’s incomprehensible to me that there are people who like odd numbers, or (worse!) just don’t care. OK, I can admit that my strong preference for even numbers is a little eccentric. But it’s not that weird, right?
Making peace with other people's decisions.
If only it stopped there.
Recently, I was watching my mother make meatballs. She was rolling them up and putting them on waxed paper prior to cooking them. Instead of making nice, neat rows of meatballs, she was just dropping them wherever they fit. When I helpfully pointed out that her method of meatball distribution was chaotic nonsense, she told me to calm down because it didn’t really matter. I accepted her reasoning.
Haha, just kidding. I yelled, “I swear, I do not understand how you are even related to me!” and stomped out of the room. I was partially joking, but this is a good example of failing at faking normal. Neurotypical people, by and large, don’t care how another person organizes uncooked meatballs. Luckily, my family and close friends are accustomed to me freaking out about things that are fairly trivial, which also makes me feel more comfortable expressing how I feel about such matters as meatball alignment.
The real problem arises when people who aren’t especially close to me visit. You guys, people move stuff. They move your coasters so they aren’t even with the table edge, they move your soap dispenser so the label isn’t facing forward, and they move your couch pillows so that there aren’t an even number on each end. These people test the limits of my sanity.
I can mostly ignore the decisions people make with their own things by simply pretending I don’t see it. When it’s my stuff, it’s trickier. The best method I’ve found is to take deep breaths and imagine how satisfying it will be to put everything back where it goes after guests leave. Imagining restoring order in the future does wonders for my mental state, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has similar issues, which is most people with ASD.
An integral part of faking normal is learning to make peace with other people’s decisions. When I was in therapy as a child, my therapist used to do things he knew would disturb my sense of order, then coach me on how to deal with it like a normal human being. This exercise was immeasurably valuable to me, though I could have cheerfully strangled him at the time.
In conclusion, when the decisions another person makes are driving me nuts, I have to stop and ask myself, “Does this really matter?” If the answer is no, I have to force myself to internalize my freakout. This doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed to feel disturbed; I just have to fake normal about it.