The fun-n-games of others

When decisions are made mostly by others, it is a complex mix of many motives that motivate decisions, and not all motives are visible on the table or even all completely visible to the individuals being motivated.

Figuring out what caused people to do what they do or did or didn't is mostly a sideliner's position for an Asperger like me. Yet unlike the true Autistic who has the good sense to not try to do the social things he/she cannot do, an Asperger is characterized by the strong urge to join in on the endless fun-n-games that other people seem to be enjoying endlessly doing. So it must be really fun, since they are doing it all the time, it seems to an Asperger person. And yet, I keep missing out on all the fun.

The Asperger person's frequent attempts to join in on the fun-n-games of others, occasionally gets the irritation of others at the social ineptness of the Asperger person; and sometimes the "clueless" apparent aspect of the Asperger person gets used to "set him up" to "take the fall" when other's motivation is mischief activity; such as when given the role of "being left holding the bag" to take the blame for the mischief. The Asperger gets into the activity solely to finally have the relief of being accepted by the group, and finally getting assigned a role in the wonderful fun-n-games others are now playing as they endlessly are always doing ... altho the saying "are we having fun yet?" is often the Asperger person's puzzle after awhile.

Girls seemed to have a special genius for coming up with new kinds of things we could do together. Not all of them reflected good sense, however, and sometimes got me into trouble (but it usually was an unintended trouble; unlike that which some of the guys would do to apparently deliberately get me into trouble, the guys seemingly considering me a rival or a nuisance.) Nonetheless I craved the companionship of a girl so as to make my life much more fun and stimulating. And in adolescence the girls started being even more interesting for new reasons, even greater fun potential.

However, despite my eagerness to play with her, the girl would usually get frustrated at my social ineptness and inability to well play the fun-n-games with her, and then she would be gone, when I was no longer useful to her. This problem continued throughout my life and persists even now this moment as a senior aged man. Life would be so much more fun for me if a woman would find me and utilize my great skills at making her happy, and so she would quickly jump into my life (or better yet quickly jump into my bed with me.) But I dimly know, though a lifetime of Asperger's experiences, that that is not the way others play the game. It frazzles me, why they would make so important a thing a game.

Maybe eventually I will conclude that the non-Aspergers endlessly play of their fun-n-games is not by choice, but because it is the way they tick, a compulsion. And that it is usually not "fun-n-games" to them, but rather "business as usual."

Or something like that. Maybe not always so much fun for them, after all. A knee-jerk kind of thing.

Maybe a compulsion to join in activities with others, like I an Asperger also have; but they have an additional magical capacity to actually play the games, which I don't seem to have. And apparently the skill at playing the games is something strongly esteemed among people. Was the term once called "moxie" even a bit before my time?

The motives involved in making decisions are probably huge in number and mostly out of sight. And the motives translated into action are what I see happening.

The decision to some particular action, probably is the result of some process analogous to the path of a ball in a pinball machine. Just how much effort am I willing to spend to figure out what the path of the pinball was, and why the path was that way?

Unlike the pinball machine, a person's real life has some adjustability in the motivational factors the pinball bounces off of in their life. People can adjust their motivations. Not easily, and not always to the optimum end result of the pinball's path, so is a bit risky.

The pinball-machine-like path of the pinball in the writing of this blog post, is but one more example of the process. Why bother doing it? My cup of coffee is growing cold waiting for me to finish.

It may be "business as usual" to others; but for me, I still seek the fun-n-games that must be in there somewhere; and hopefully some gal will soon come into my life and show me the way for the fun in the games with her.

Am lots older but not so much wiser.