Posted at 4:00 p.m.
She will be 60 years old. But the diagnosis has just come in, just last year. Rereading of a life full of “camouflages”, conventions and other misinterpretations.
“Is it because I’m a woman, or because of my diagnosis, but it’s always been agreed, for me, that even if you don’t feel like it, you fuck,” says our interlocutor, in looking us straight in the eye, barely seated in Laurier Park. It’s called diving into the heart of the matter.
Small and dynamic, with her big eyes and her little round glasses, Charlotte* looks back on her life without being asked, despite somewhat disheveled memories, jumping from rooster to donkey, from tragedy to comedy, with a rather sympathetic transparency. .
It was last year, therefore, that everything tumbled: while listening to a radio broadcast, she heard the testimony of a lady barely older than her, who said that she had spent her life without knowing. She talks about “camouflage”, imitations of behavior, and sensitivity to light. “And then I had a flashback to my whole life. […] I didn’t know that was it. »
A diagnosis later, and “it’s clear”, he is confirmed. Charlotte is indeed “Asperger”.
As a teenager, I was very complexed, but that might just be me!
Charlotte*, late fifties
She had a first lover at 15 (“but we were just kissing!”), a second at 18 (“it goes a little further”), then a first sexual relationship at 20. ” It’s time ! »
Parenthesis (there will be several during the interview): at CEGEP, Charlotte hangs out “really a lot” with a girl, she remembers (“I was going to her house, we were watching”), they are even called “lesbians” in a class, but she does not suspect for a moment that the latter is interested. ” Nope ! she bursts out laughing. But come on, Charlotte, she’s got a kick on you! […] I’ve been called naive all my life! […] Youhoo! »
Still, at the age of 20, she met the father of her child at university. “I liked it. He was very experienced. I say to myself: let’s go ! I was really scared, but it went really well. It was extremely pleasant. I really discovered heterosexual sex. Why does she specify “straight”? We won’t really know.
Over time, however, their affairs become “monotonous”. It must be said that mister misleads her. “He told me as soon as he met me: I will never be faithful. But I was very hooked…”
And she ? Did she cheat on him? “Yeah,” she giggled again. I had forgotten that! I tried that and it was gross, ark! He was more naive than me and I wonder if I wasn’t his first. It pissed me off a bit. She continues without transition: “It’s not that important, sex, for me, I have the impression…”
They end up separating after a few years, and Charlotte then lives her “post-adolescence”, as she says. “There, I started to go out. I used to bring a guy home pretty much all the time. For the deed. To cram. I was doing it. And they were half drunk…”
Why ? No idea. Looking back, I have no idea. It’s weird, huh? I felt no pressure. I was doing it. I who never wake up, I spent my evenings dancing.
Charlotte*, late fifties
It was around this time that she met her second real boyfriend, late twenties, a seriously mentally ill man, she says, who was once arch-violent (“I thought I was going to die…”), and whom she unfortunately never saw coming. “I was naive, I put myself in danger! »
New parenthesis: “But, on the other hand, sex with him was incredible. The best cunnilingus in the world, it’s him. »
The story ends badly, but “eventually ends,” she says.
And then ? “Fuck it, lovers, Charlotte said to herself, I started banging men in relationships. Married men! “Men not only caught, but particularly intelligent as a bonus. “Me, it goes a lot through that. I do not know why. But it’s a wasp’s nest, that business. Because it is not because a man can talk to you about Heidegger that he is respectful, gentle and kind! »
She does not expand on the question, but specifies that she is cured: “It is no longer necessary to be an intellectual star. »
Because deep down, she realizes, she’s not really looking for intimacy, but rather “complicity”.
Nth parenthesis:
For real, genitality, it’s crazy, the emphasis we put on it!
Charlotte*, late fifties
This all brings us to a few years ago, around the turn of 50. Helping menopause, Charlotte no longer really has any “interest”. And begins to question this “absolute quest to want to be with someone”. It must be said that she hears all the colors of her relatives: “You, with your particularities, not a guy is going to want you! »
But Charlotte is not offended: she likes silence; eating alone; stick to a schedule. “It’s true, she smiles, I have my rigidities! »
And then very recently, armed with her diagnosis, she met a man on a friendly dating forum “between Aspergers”. He is nice. “Really nice”, but not at all to his taste. “A friend would be fun!” “, she says to herself. They write to each other. More and more. To the point where Charlotte does not understand. Again, his friends intervene: “Wake up and smell the coffee ! As throughout my life, I do not detect when a man cruises me! »
She distances herself and the friendship ends there.
And there, where is she? ” No idea. It might be Asperger’s, but sometimes I feel lonely. Existential loneliness, she says. I try to find out: are there people like me? […] That’s why philosophers interest me so much. They talk about this existential loneliness. Not emotional dependence, but the famous big questions: who am I? We find ourselves alone, from birth to our death. Even if we are accompanied. It’s just reassuring, when someone catch… “, she drops.
And does she feel like she’s never been caught ? dare we. “Myself, I do not wrestle not ! You don’t have to ask too much! “, she replies, in a big and unexpected burst of laughter, before leaving us in a rush.
* Fictitious first name, to protect his anonymity.