I am new on PsychCentral. I mentioned in my introductory post that I was diagnosed with AS on 4/12/1996. I often claim I've only had issues with loneliness since my paternal grandfather died on 2/5/2004. I barely miss him anymore, but if I say too much about him I'll start crying.

The very next night (2/6/2004), most of the friends I thought I had pushed me away within a matter of minutes. It started with the DeafBlind & those who defend them threatening to send authorities after me. Once I decided I'll never attempt to read sign language visually again & insist on tactile signing at all times because the Deaf sighted get angry when I stop understanding them, I was also ostracised from their subgroup in the signing community. Most sign language students are ladies who are dating/engaged to/married to men who are not also learning sign language. When their men notice I only wanna sign with them and shun their men, the men get jealous & break me & my female friends apart. Now I claim to be ostracized from the entire signing community. Since proving my auditory processing disorder in May of 2010, I have been using tactile interpreters a few times a year. But when I use interpreters is the only time I sign.

I can only understand a small percentage of spoken words, & only when listening conditions are absolutely perfect (only one person talking, no background noise at all, speech rate no faster than 80 words per minute, speaker does not have any foreign/regional accent throwing me off, etc). I cannot socialize in crowds of non-signers.

Any more I don't want a social life. At least the DeafBlind got me to accept human touch by showing me how good it feels to be touched in the right ways by someone I communicate well with. One DeafBlind lady decided to cuddle with me. She showed me that I can get ALL the touch I need plus so much more from just ONE person by cuddling with a girlfriend. Even though she was playing with my emotions, I learned from that experience that cuddling with a girlfriend is a far better way to get my need for touch fulfilled than being popular with the DeafBlind. The way she touched my hands to receive tactile sign is the only touch that I can only get from another tactile signer. All the other touches she gave are touches that that any able-bodied human being is capable of giving.

But I continue to read that having a social life is a prerequisite for having a girlfriend. Someone please disprove that! I cannot have a social life! I refuse to patronize most public establishments because anyone & everyone whose children are birth to age eight are so inconsiderate, letting their brats run around & squEEEEEEEEEEEal, which irritates me to the core due to my hypersensitive hearing! If I complain about the noise to the parents' faces, they snap @ me, insisting the reason their children squEEEEEEEEEEEal is "because they're kids", and "if they make me mad because they're kids" to "deal w/it". That is some BULLS***! One of these times I fear a loud shouting match between me & another patron of the Tustin Public Library where I go online because I do not have a computer nor internet in my home.

This morning I cried for half an hour over the fact that today is the 3rd anniversary of my last cuddle with the abovementioned DeafBlind lady, which means I have gone 3 years without much needed cuddles.