The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. I felt frustrated today.

"I'm extremely isolated and lonely," I said to Girlfriend when we were eating lunch. "During the day I work at home by myself. And in the evenings and weekends, I only talk to you, 6-year-old, and 2-year-old. A couple of times a month I talk to my family but it's through a screen. And sometimes I go out with people but that's just once a week. I try to organise things but no one's interested. Yesterday I asked 114 people if they wanted to go climbing and only one girl said she might want to go."

I carried on: "It's autism," I said. "It's like having an invisible brick wall in front of me. The only people I can make friends with are other autistic people. And I don't know any other autistic people."

Girlfriend was sympathetic. "How about the acting class you mentioned? If you start doing that, you might make friends there."

Every Wednesday there's an acting class in Girona. I'm good at acting because I get loads of practice by having to act normal every day.

"Yeah, I might go to that," I said. "Well, anyway, at least I've got you to talk to today."

"What do you mean?" she said. "I'm taking 6-year-old to the cinema."

Girlfriend left soon after with 6-year-old. I was left with 2-year-old.

So I took 2-year-old to Ludivers. It's an annual event in Girona where there are tonnes of board games to play, for free.

I was feeling pretty desperate for any kind of social contact. It was a mix of loneliness and frustration. So I sent a message to the 114 people in the WhatsApp social group:

Sharing my location if anyone wants to meet up with me and my 2-year-old son. Unlike me, my son is sweet and charming

I then set my location to share for an hour.

While I waited for people to see my message, I took 2-year-old to a play area for young children. All the parents were standing around chatting. I got down on my knees and played with the kids.

"This is chocolate," I said, putting a pine cone in my mouth. Then I spat out the pine cone. "NO, that is NOT chocolate. Do not eat that. Yuck."

Some of the kids walked away in unease. But one girl stayed.

"Why are you playing here?" she asked me. She was a 3-year-old girl with shoulder-length blonde hair.

"I'm here with my son," I said. "He's this boy." I pointed to 2-year-old, who was standing next to me.

"How old is he?"

"I don't know, let me ask him. How old are you?"

He ignored me.

"Sorry," I said, "the only words he normally understands are 'chocolate', 'ice cream' and 'pancake.' Let me try again. Are you one year old?"

He shook his head.

"Are you two?"

He shook his head again.

"Are you three?"

He shook his head a third time.

We carried on like this for a while. When I reached "ten" he still shook his head.

"He must be a hundred years old," I said to the girl, feigning amazement.

She smiled. Then her mom called her away.

But a few minutes later, the little girl came up to me again. "What's your name?" she asked me.

"My name?" I said. "My name's Paul. What's your name?"

"Kiba," she said.

"Oh. And is it time for you to go home?"

Her mom was standing nearby. "No," she said, "We're going to the circus show. It's just over there."

"Oh," I said. I'm comfortable around children but awkward around adults. "Well I think it already started," I said.

They left. I checked my phone to see if anyone was coming. There was not a single reply to my message. And not a single person had come.

Well, at least I made one friend today. Unfortunately, she was 3 years old and I'm 36.

2-year-old and I stayed at Ludivers for three hours. The highlight was playing Streets of Rage on a Megadrive. 2-year-old sat in the pushchair eating a yogurt and watching me fight bad guys. I noticed a five-year-old girl watching me play. I handed her the second controller and said, "Here, take this. B is attack."

We played together for a while, me and this 5-year-old girl. If only socialising with adults was as easy as socialising with children. I was shouting things at the screen like "YOU WANNA DIE? YOU ALL WANNA DIE?" while the girl was making her character, a black kid called Skate, spin around on his head. Then one of the organisers of the stand came over and said they were closing for the day. At first, I thought he was lying just to make me go away, but then I looked around and saw they really were closing for the day.

***

When I got home, I decided to change my WhatsApp profile picture. I'm not smiling in it, just looking serious. People see it and think "weird guy".

I went to Girlfriend and said, "I need your help. Do you have any photos of me? I want a new profile picture for WhatsApp."

"Yeah," she said. She pulled out her phone. We scrolled through her photos together.

"No," I said. "Next. Next. Too autistic, next. No way. Nope. No. Too autistic. Too autistic. Next. Next"

In the end we decided on a photo of me and the kids at the beach. That's the kind of profile picture normal people have: a picture with their kids. Either that or a selfie taken at the top of a mountain, a wedding photo, or doing some kind of extreme sport like skydiving. What's wrong with people? Why not just use a photo of your face?

"Can you help me with something else?" I said to Girlfriend. "How do you get your hair looking good? Mine sticks up."

My hair always looks messy. Not in a sexy carefree way either, but in a "Hey Clarice, that guy has something wrong with him. Don't let our kids near him" way. I rarely comb it. It sticks up like a mad professor's hair. The least God could do is give me good hair; he owes me a lot.

"Well, I'm lucky," she said. "I have thin hair. It makes it easy to look after."

"Do you shampoo it?" I asked.

"Well yes, of course. Everyone shampoos their hair."

Not me I don't.

"And do you comb your hair after you wash it?" I asked her.

"Of course I do. Everyone does."

Not me.

Fuck sake. This is Hair 101.

Fucking autism. The only thing it's good for is writing humorous blog posts about having autism.