Had a dinner party this weekend.
It went pretty well - thanks, in no small part, to our
tactical planning.
Ethan could, quite acceptably, absorb himself in the cooking
and so be excused from making small-talk for the first twenty minutes at least,
of the evening. By the time he did sit down and join the conversation, people
were already well into the flow and unlikely to notice the odd awkward comment
or lack of comprehension on his part.
Ethan, actually, was amazing. Gone are the days, mostly,
when I worry about how he's going to behave in public and whether I'll face
complete embarrassment at being linked to him. Ethan can play the role of
interested social partaker pretty well these days - particularly if he knows
it's coming and he can mentally prepare for it.
We all chatted animatedly, occasionally in twos and threes
but mainly in one big group, the whole night. Ethan interjected, laughed in the
right places, contributed to conversation and remained focused throughout:
proof, if ever there was any, that social interaction can be learnt by a
high-functioning person with Aspergers. As an added bonus, he even enjoyed
himself!
The only blip came at 11.45pm when the music abruptly ended
and Ethan started yawning - big, obvious yawns (thankfully he stopped short of
loading the dishwasher and putting on his pyjamas!) For someone who isn't meant
to understand social cues, he did a pretty good job of giving off a few of his
own!
Thankfully everyone was drunk enough by then not to pick up
on it and carried on chatting for another half an hour - much to Ethan's
consternation!
Overall, a great night. I am beginning to feel that Ethan
and I can get away as seeming a fairly normal couple (when Ethan tries hard) within
an ever-increasing social circle. It's been a long and, at times, painful road
to get here. We've had many other excruciating social occasions, particularly when
we first got married: when Ethan was clueless and had to learn everything from
scratch and I was a bewildered young bride in shock at the irritable,
unsociable, rude individual I'd just promised to spend my life with!
In some ways it would have been easier to accept the way
things were and live my own life while he stayed in and watched other people's
lives on the telly. And there is a certain amount of that that goes on in our
relationship. But, as the norm, that's not what either of us signed up for when
we promised to share our lives with each other.
So we pushed through, and still are doing - learning as we
go. Accepting what we can't change but together, committing to change the
things we can...there's a quote in there somewhere!
Well done Laura, so pleased your dinner party was a success.
ReplyDeleteMr H is not comfortable with social gatherings (other than family which he tolerates) so we don't really do the dinner party thing, which is a shame because I am quite sociable, but I think I would be too anxious that he would ignore people and switch the TV on or even go to bed, as he has done in the past!
He once panicked when I had a couple of old friends staying overnight ( who he had met before) and booked himself into a hotel. We tend to do our socialising separately, in that I go out with friends, he stays at home with the TV! But it works for us I suppose.
Hannah x