Sometimes I was jealous

In college, there was a boy.
He had friends that were girls and friends that were boys.

I was jealous of him from the beginning.

(from before I even had really thought about autism and me)

Because he was very visually autistic. And I was jealous sometimes.
Because somehow, it was ok for him to run up to people or to just run places instead of walking.
Because it was ok if his run was not a normal run, but something different.
And somehow it was ok for him not to remember people's faces.
And he had friends and I did not. And I was jealous of that.
I couldn't even talk to boys.
(because they scared me)
And he could talk to everyone.
And everyone responded.

And no one seemed to care if he looked in their eyes or not.
And everyone on campus knew him.
And he seemed to do well in school.
And he could just wander and stop in and talk and make friends, and somehow that was ok for him (but not for me).

And I was jealous.

I was jealous of being obviously different, instead of just almost-normal.
I was jealous of not having to pretend to be normal.

I was tired of spending hours and hours trying to memorize faces, just to fail.
I was tired of coming up with conversation topics in case I ever came up with people to talk to and never having it count.

(And I know that his life had his own difficulties, but jealousy isn't always rational. Jealousy sees the bad parts of me and the good parts of him.)

Sometimes I was jealous.
Sometimes I am jealous.

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