[check out this post on my personal page, where it looks better]

As of last Friday, I’m unemployed. My contract as a programmer with the public health sector ran out, and they couldn’t renew it for legal reasons. I would have preferred to leave the office that last day without talking to anyone, but I did go into my boss’ office and told him about the circumstances, mainly that I don’t think I will return to work as a technician because of my health issues (ended up three times in the ER due to the stress that working as a technician causes me). He acknowledged that due to the recent changes in the rankings, that push down anyone who can’t speak Basque, I was unlikely to return regularly to work there. We exchanged some pleasant-sounding words, then shook hands. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone else.

You see, whenever I become acquainted with a new group of people (from classrooms, jobs, etc.), I grow so tired of having to conform to their image of me, that I’m always relieved when the time comes to leave those people behind. And the image they have of me never aligns with reality because interacting with human beings never comes naturally to me. I’m autistic, as I’ve mentioned a million times, and for me, people are like wild animals. I can’t read their intentions, their reactions often baffle me, I’m regularly appalled by their opinions. Whenever any of them approaches me, I’m my mind I’m running some variation of, “Please go away and leave me alone.”

Then there’s the case of people from those groups who end up despising me for reasons unknown, who then proceed to dislike me even more because I ignore the fact that they don’t like me. The thing is, more often than not, I didn’t even notice their dislike. There was this woman at my office, who left about a year and a half ago. Apparently she disliked me a lot. She was the kind that complains about people lacking empathy, which usually meant that others weren’t responding to her like she wanted them to. I guess she was bound to end up disliking me, but I hadn’t noticed. It took another coworker telling me that she clearly couldn’t stand me for me to get it.

Now that I think back on my twenty or so years of working on and off, I realize that I’ve never gotten along with female coworkers. I’m the kind that focuses on his tasks and doesn’t socialize. The vast majority of female coworkers I’ve had (not all of them) were the “stop at a coworker’s table and chat up” kind. I don’t know if it’s about a need for attention, or what. Thing is, when they did this to other male coworkers, they didn’t like it; they admitted that they pretend to be busier than they were, to dissuade these women from engaging with them, but if the female coworker started a conversation, the guy went along until she got bored. Once she left, the guy often sighed or shook his head. But I don’t even go along with it; I actively ignore or redirect anything not related to work. I simply don’t enjoy talking about myself in person, or offering glimpses of my life outside of work. For me, a perfect day at the office involves not saying a single word for the entire shift, which was virtually impossible when I worked as a technician.

There’s a deeper thing with silence that happens to many autistic people. The more autistic you are, the more likely you’re to be non-verbal. I was a silent kid myself; at the most, I vocalized stuff about my daydreams. In my case, to the extent I can understand it, talking is a huge effort because I’m fully aware, to my core, of the near impossibility of communicating to a real extent with another human being. They may speak the same language superficially, but the meaning is very different. They don’t experience reality through my brain. It’s like being surrounded by followers of some bizarre religion, who try to involve you in their discussion. What would you even say? You don’t even share a frame of reference. Many utterances that would come naturally would end up making them dislike you, potentially causing trouble. It’s better to remain silent. I thought about this topic a couple of hours ago, and the final sentence of a novella I wrote back in 2017-2018 came to mind: “I had nothing to say. Not to him, not to anyone.”

So, I’m unemployed. I should call to reactivate the unemployment benefits. I should mess with my curriculum vitae and start looking for protected jobs as a programmer. Regarding the job-searching business, I obviously hate it (I don’t know if there’s anyone who likes it). I’ve always been relieved when I apply for a job but I’m rejected. I guess I proved to myself that I tried. But if I get hired, I have to meet a whole new bunch of people whom I’ll eventually end up resenting, for whom I’ll have to perform tasks that likely I won’t feel like doing. Some people enjoy going to work because of the people there, but I don’t like people, so for me it’s all about the money.

Ever since I became unemployed, I don’t feel like doing much of anything. I did spend a couple of hours yesterday afternoon playing the guitar in a nearby park, and I plan to head to another location this afternoon to play some more. But I’ve lost significant enthusiasm for the programming project I’ve been working on these past few months. I’ve looked for games that could distract me for at least a couple of hours a day, but ever since I tried VR, I have trouble getting attached to desktop games. I’m almost Gen-Z-ish regarding movies; very hard for them to retain my attention. Nevermind the fact that most movies released in the past fifteen years or so are garbage. Novels don’t attract me either; I tried to read Pratchett’s The Fifth Elephant, which is the next in line of his The Watch series, but I’m not in a hurry to return to it. It’s general apathy. What I do feel strongly is the need to be left alone, to not have to engage with anyone.

I guess that’s all for today. Not sure why I felt the need to say any of this.