Pokémon
On Friday, August 22nd, 2025, one of Paige’s childhood friends, let's call her Miranda, texted her and asked if she wanted to hang out that night. While that night didn’t work out, they scheduled a hangout for the following Friday. Not wanting to intrude, I reached out to my friend Clo and asked her if she wanted to hang out.
Now, for her own personal reasons, Clo moved in with her grandma a few months back. At 6:30, on August 29th, I left the apartment, got some bubble tea, and arrived at Clo’s grandma’s house around 7:15. What I thought was going to happen was, we would drink our Boba, maybe go on a walk, and talk about an installment I want Clo to write about her experiences as an autistic woman. Clo had other ideas.
“So,” Clo explained almost as soon as I was inside, “over the last year or so, I have been collecting a group of other autistics-”
“We’re not Pokémon,” I interrupted.
She laughed and continued, “I really think you’ll like them.”
Always wanting to meet new people, I agreed to go out. Before we left, Clo gave me an extra pair of noise-canceling headphones for me to keep. Clo’s grandma lives in an area that I am not used to, so Clo drove my car to where we were going. After driving for about 15 minutes, I asked where we were going, and she replied, “The Convention Center.”
After we parked, we walked up to the convention center, and the door was locked. Someone saw us, opened the door, and dramatically hugged and greeted us as if she’d known us for years. It wasn’t until we walked away from her that I realized we had snuck in. As we walked around, I saw a ton of people cosplaying as comic book, movie, and anime characters. I do, in fact, consider myself a nerd, but I have never been a cosplayer, so while walking into that world was a bit overwhelming, I definitely had fun.
Clo introduced me to her friends. There were about 10 of them, and we spent the rest of the night wandering around, and it was so overstimulating that I can't remember all of their names. But that’s kinda the point… they didn't care. Now major disclaimer: What I am about to write is NOT a dig on any of my friends or family. I would say that, generally speaking, I’m a very confident person. But I have cultivated that confidence, over the course of my life, as a way to help mask my autism. I work at a school for kids with autism that I went to as a kid, and I'm very comfortable around Paige (I mean, I ought to be, I'm marrying her). My point is, I don't mask my autism as much as I used to.
I love being confident, and it's a huge part of who I am. But because it is so tied to my mask, it can get tiring being the most outgoing, confident person in the room all the time. In almost every relationship, there are expectations, and that's not a bad thing. But the beauty of Clo and my friendship is that because she is autistic, and she understands masking, she has no expectations about me doing it! I don’t have to be overly confident all the time when we hang out. After we left the Convention Center, I thought about my Pokémon joke. I realized that in the Autism community, generally speaking, friends are like Pokémon. Because we crave connection, there is this desperate desire to “Catch ‘em all,” and sometimes it’s really exhausting. I’m thankful that Clo introduced me to a group of friends that understand how that feels and were very accepting because of that.
Have a Greattastic day and be safe!
J. Mitchie Ulibarri
No comments:
Post a Comment