I’ve recently been reconnecting with my nephew, who is my son. I didn’t have sex with my sister; my first ever girlfriend tricked me into getting her pregnant and my sister, herself sort of an adoptee, was looking to adopt at the time. I enjoy being able to describe him as “my nephew, the one who is my son” because likely there aren’t a lot of people who can accurately say that and, well, it gets a reaction from anyone paying attention.

Sorry, got off track, though it was relevant to the narrative. My sister, his mom, works in the field of psychology and has informed him that he is likely autistic. Though not by her, I’ve been told the same thing many times by many different people. Last weekend, he and I spent an hour or two playing a game and voice chatting. We both mentioned several things that others have identified as odd behavior that we think is just optimized thinking.

One of my very early Lemmy posts (under a different account) was about how following patterns is a way to make sure you do things right. During the aforementioned gaming session he said “I can’t function without my patterns.”

I’m genuinely not sure I’m autistic, but everyone around me seems to be convinced I am and I guess I see why.