20 Facts About My Autistic Boyfriend

My boyfriend is on the autistic spectrum.

When I met him, I never would have guessed that’s the case — throughout the years, he’s mastered the art of social interaction, which often makes him a much more advanced social butterfly than I am. He always knows what to say, how to say it, when to ask you if everything’s okay, how to navigate difficult conversations.

It doesn’t come naturally, though.

As I’ve got to know him more, I’ve realised that his responses and conversational strategies are often the same patterns repeated over and over again. As a child, he used to observe people, secretly trying to learn from them.

He learned how to recognise people’s emotions and how to respond to them, how to reassure and console others, how to make it seem like he totally relates to everything you say, and absolutely gets what you mean.

Well, he doesn’t. Not always, anyway. It’s just easier to pretend he does.

I’d never dated an autistic person before, and I’m honestly curious to learn more about my boyfriend as time goes on. I’m planning on marrying him, so if there’s one thing I have, it’s certainly lots of time.

Here are 20 things I adore, find amusing and sometimes struggle with about my autistic boyfriend.

1. He hates sand. He apparently doesn’t like the way it feels on his skin.

2. He loves birds. Like, lots. “Look, a magpie!” He nudges you in the middle of the conversation. Another magpie, you think with a silent sigh. Time to stop speaking for half a minute so he can watch his birds. Two hours later, the same thing happens. And again. And again. If he wasn’t so cute, I’d probably blow up in frustration by this point. It’s good, though. It teaches me patience. Plus, his cute excitement douses every flame of anger I could feel.

3. All his devices have genders. He doesn’t name them or anything, he just gives them genders. No, wait. He doesn’t give it to them, he senses it. He simply knows. Apparently, he always felt more connected to machines than humans as a child. This persevering love can be proved by all the cables and gadgets that somehow always end up cluttering his bedroom.

4. He watches videos of people taking things apart with a waterjet. And he can do it for hours. If it’s not a waterjet video, it’s a motorbike. Or engines. Or…something like that.

5. He blurs out controversial things all the time. Luckily, he only does it when he’s with his close ones. He’s being careful with other people. Thank god for that.

6. His emotions are gentle and silent. Over the years, he’s learned to understand them and spot them, but it took some time for him to feel like he has any emotions at all. This bit is super interesting to me because my emotions are like a hurricane. I could cry a river right now if you just asked nicely. He consoles me when I’m sobbing over something ridiculous, and I cuddle him in silence when he feels down and isn’t very talkative. If you combined the two of us, you might get a person with a normal range of emotions.

7. He looks like a lost child in supermarkets. For the record, he never is lost, it’s just that he suddenly looks super sad and vulnerable because he’s overwhelmed by all the stimuli.

8. Speaking of stimuli, don’t try to have a serious conversation with him anywhere else than in a shower. There are no distractions. No phone, no birds, no waterjets. It’s where he can properly focus on a deep conversation for longer than five minutes.

9. His kind of memes is not my kind of memes. When he sends me “funny” videos or pictures, it’s a miss 90% of the time. I honestly don’t even comment on it by this point. *sigh*

10. He cooks very slowly. When he peels an onion, the whole world stops and focuses on this onion. Sometimes he starts cooking, and when I come to the kitchen twenty minutes later, he’s still peeling that onion. He’s a great cook, though (he told me to say that — but it’s true).

11. He almost never cries. We’re having a long-distance relationship right now and he hasn’t cried once that we had to say goodbye or that he missed me afterwards. Sweet videos about parenthood and the anime Little Witch Academia make him occasionally tear up, though. He does let me know how much he misses me and he’s very attentive, even when he doesn’t cry.

12. He wins every single knowledge quiz. While others excitedly shout, hype each other up or grunt because they’ve lost, he’s sitting there in silence and ends up winning. Each time. Which is, like, the hottest thing ever.

13. He finds it hard to console me sometimes. When I cry, he has to go through this thought-process in his head: 1) She cries. 2) That’s not good. 3) I ought to do something about it. 4) I will try to console her. This means there’s sometimes a delay in his reactions, which can make me feel lonely because it’s simply not natural for him to automatically get what I feel and rush for rescue. He does his best, though, and his best is more than enough.

14. Too many demands at once overwhelm him. He needs to take it step by step. Don’t apply too much pressure, or he’ll quietly say, “Please, I don’t like this. I am frustrated.”

15. He loves his games about spaceships where he uses some honk option to honk at people for half an hour, while laughing hysterically.

16. He almost never bursts our laughing, only when he sends a message he’s written himself that he finds particularly hilarious. Oh, and when he honks. Don’t forget the honking.

17. Since he was little, he’s considered it weird that men treat women as if women were something less. He observed this behaviour a lot and he simply didn’t get it. He still doesn’t, although as an adult, he can see the toxic masculinity that hides behind lots of these actions.

18. Although his emotions are quiet, he gives me lots of love. We cuddle, we tell each other beautiful things every day and he’s the most attentive man I’ve ever been with.

19. He always wears the same clothes because he can’t be bothered with fashion.

20. He knows everything there is to know about animals. Especially birds. And especially magpies.

Many autistic people struggle with the emotional side of things. This, however, doesn’t mean that they’re cold or incapable of love. Quite the opposite.

My boyfriend is a wonderful human being who always seeks beauty in all corners of the world. He cares, he does his absolute best and he never fails to make me feel like I’m the luckiest person in the world to have him.

Every day with him is a blessing.

This article was originally published here.