A high valence puzzle

Sometimes life presents a puzzle to a socially-dimwit Asperger that the usual wait-I-will-figure-this-out-give-me-time process does not provide an explanation, despite returning to the memory to process it much later, after more of life experiences have provided new data about the people-stuff puzzle. So as an effort to reconcile, even though not comprehend, one such experience I had, and the some ... forty years since it happened, still no adequate answer has shown up, and so is likely to remain a mystery to me along with its high valence content, needs to be resolved insofar as possible, so making this blog post is maybe a way to deal with the thing. Or at least shine new light on it, air it out.

As I said, this happened about forty years ago. It is time to let it go, insofar as possible.

The situation was that my wife of 12 years had divorced me, and I had been participating with a church singles group for a long time, and it was at one of their group events I now found myself. The off-site group activities were all quite different and interesting, although Aspergers-me could at best only be a fringe person watching what others did, as I tried to comprehend so as to participate a bit better. I also always had the desperate hope I could find a new woman for my life among the group, a desperately hoped-for thing that I could not physically express.

The singles group had moved to a fairly large empty room, and we all were asked to line up in a straight line, and stand facing away from the line.

I found myself down near the end of the line of about twenty people, because it took me a bit to figure out what others were doing so I could then try to fit in. I had no idea what it was for, but I had some curiosity blended in with my usual lonely despair.

One of the members I recognized came out of a door near the far end of the line of people; he was a benign person, and he announced to us that he sometimes functioned as a psychic for police work, and he was going to demonstrate that skill to us. So he stood in front of the first person on the far end of the line, paused a moment, then spoke outloud so all could hear, something that apparently made sense to the person there. Then he would shift to stand in front of the next person in the line, pause thoughtfully, then speak something about that person. I listened in, and the things being said were all quite different kinds of things, but meant little to me. He slowly worked his way down the line toward where I stood.

Eventually he had worked his way down the line of people to stand thoughtfully in front of me a moment. Then to my surprise he said something unlike said to any of the others. He said that I was very intelligent, had a high IQ of 165, and a bit more. Then he shifted to the next person in line.

So I was standing there with those words "IQ of 165, highly intelligent" yet in reality I felt quite squashed and ruined and unable to think of much of anything useful, barely surviving. Surely he had been wrong. Yet at one time the high IQ kind of thing had applied to me, but decades before.

The man had finished going down the line telling each person something they needed to know about themselves, then he said to all of us to stay in line where we were, and he then left the room.

A moment after he left the room, another man popped out of that door, a man who walked with the physique of muscles under the formal clothing and he had a curious air of utter confidence. He walked straight at where I was standing, but as he got closer, I noticed that he was walking powerfully to the spot I stood, but did not appear to see me standing there. At the last instant I stepped back to keep from getting rammed by him; he then turned and stood as if he belonged in the line. I was now standing a bit in back of the line, quite puzzled.

Then out of the door came a very attractive young woman, clearly one who would have made a fine companion for me, but of course she would not ever notice a miserable man like me. She started walking a bit away from the line of people starting at the far end, clearly she was counting people as she walked. Then she stopped right in front of the man who had taken my place in the line, and started talking to him, introducing herself.

The line of people broke up and people drifted off, and the attractive young woman who continued to talk softly with the man who had taken my place in the line, and they slowly moved off and eventually out the door together.

As usual I was then left alone, and so I made my way out of the door, quite baffled by it all. As usual, people-stuff was complicated. Yet I had figured out that I had been cheated out of my desperately needed opportunity for a new woman in my life. And the manner in which it was done was a multiple puzzle. I needed time to figure it out.

Forty years later now and despite occasional replay of that event in my mind, I have come up with little in subsequent life experiences to figure it out. That I remain lonely miserable mateless without woman, is apparent; and that my unexpected big chance to have not have that miserable thing happen, had been cheated from me by some really peculiar ongoings long ago.

So I write it here in my blog, to air it out and let it go a bit. People-stuff is complicated, the past is past and gone and cannot be rescued from the far away from here and now; I need to realize some puzzles will remain, but they don't have to have such high valence emotional content anymore. I hope.