You mean, she'd rather imagine herself relating to someone who's absent than build relationships with those around her?
— You don't tell me things, Joel. I'm an open book. I tell you everything. Every damn embarrassing thing. You don't trust me.
— You don't have to be afraid of silence, Clementine. Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating.
— I don't do that. I want to know you. I don't constantly talk. Jesus. People have to share things. That's what intimacy is. I'm really pissed that you said that to me.
— I'm sorry. I just don't have anything very interesting about my life.
Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest.
"Oh, they don't miss me," she said. "I'm anti-social, they say... I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it?. Social to me means talking about things like this." She rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off the tree in the front yard. "Or talking about how strange the world is. Being with people is nice... But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film-teacher. That's not social to me at all. It's a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not... They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people around, break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball... Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close you can get to lamp-posts, playing `chicken' and 'knock hub-caps. I guess I'm everything they say I am, all right. I haven't any friends. That's supposed to prove I'm abnormal. But everyone I know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another... Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?"
Absolute honesty isn't always the most diplomatic, nor the safest form of communication with emotional beings.
Did you know that cigarettes are a shield against meaningful interaction with other people? It's true. I read it. People protect themselves
emotionally by relating to their cigarettes instead of each other. That's what struck me last night watching all those people standing around with their cigarettes. Why is everyone so afraid? Why are people so scared of each other?
I find that polishing my interactions... in order to make them sociable requires a tremendous effort.
Because if l didn't respond we were still having a conversation. I was still in it.
Well... You know how they say: «it's been a pleasure»? It hasn't.
There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.
You left just when you were becoming interesting.
Be civil to all, sociable to many, familiar with few.
1 in 68 children in this country are diagnosed with a form of autism. But if you can put aside for a moment what your pediatrician and all the other NT's have said about your son... What if we're wrong? What if we've been using the wrong tests to quantify intelligence in children with autism? Your son's not less-than. He's different. Now, your expectations for your son may change over time, they might include marriage, children, self-sufficiency. They might not. But I guarantee you, if we let the world set expectations for our children, they'll start low, and they'll stay there. And maybe... Just maybe... He doesn't understand how to tell us. Or... we haven't yet learned how to listen.
The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.
Human beings need human connection. You know, companionship, conversation, sex...
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