Because you don’t bloody listen.
Going to events can be challenging when you are autistic. It is definitely challenging for me. I have noise sensitivity and social anxiety. I’ve recently learned that I’m liable to crash if I’m overstimulated during a social event. Fun!
I’m going to talk about a specific event here. It is a brunch that happens monthly and is for bisexual people. They actually don’t card for sexual orientation, but if you’re not an ally, you’re not going to enjoy yourself. This event used to happen in a locale that I would be able to tolerate. I’ll note that there is no social situation that is absolutely without risk for me, but some places are definitely worse than other places.
I’ve actually talked about this event in a prior article:
After I wrote that article, I went into the Discord server to tell folks about what happened to me the day before, and I referred to the article I linked to above.
Even before that event happened, I had suggested another location to the people in the Discord server. I was told that my suggestion would be forwarded to the person responsible, but this did not happen. Generally, speaking, I think it is fallacious to insist that unless you can come up with a solution, then you mustn’t complain. However, I do prefer to present a solution when I can, and this time I could. I had been to this other place before and did not recall much trouble there.
Note that I’m not the only member of the group who is not fond of the new location for the brunches. Other members have perhaps not crashed like I did, but they have complained about the noise, or the subpar food offerings. Some of them complained before in the event chat on Meetup, but they weren’t heard either.
So, today, I went into the chat for the Meetup event and copied and pasted what I had put into the Discord server, minus the references to my article. It was a relatively restrained message. I laid the facts, and said that I had suggested another location, and that as far as I could tell nothing happened with my suggestion.
As far as I am concerned, I did not make a scene, but I’m half-expecting some ableist idiot to come over and accuse me of such a thing. I really thought about making a scene, however.
Why would I make a scene?
Because, so far, nobody who can make a change has listened to my complaints and the complaints of other members. This is why. We autistic people are always in the minority, and we end up being overlooked. Our needs are ignored, until, one day, we figure that we’re only going to be heard if we make a scene.
I thought about it, but I did not. I don’t know about next time.
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