Perturbed

Spending a lot of the time on the Internet, as I and many others do, will expose you to every manner of lowlife available. MRAs, racists, misogynists, all manner of political and religious zealots, and anti-vaxxers are just a few that get on my tits. Whoever you're thinking of, they're out there too. Cyberspace contains every walk of life imaginable, from the best of us to the very worst, but the worst of us tend to speak the most obnoxiously, the most loudly, and the most frequently. For the most part, these terrible people are not people you'll encounter in real life all that much, partially because they tend to be a lot less brave and open about their horribleness out in the world than they are in cyberspace and also because most people try to stick to social environments free of such demonstrably despicable dipshits. Until yesterday, I could say I've met everyone on my list in real life except for anti-vaxxers.

While I've had friends who are/were anti-vaxxers before, it was never when our interactions were in person or they knew not to mention it around me. Online, it is easy to ignore, block, or whatever, but one cannot do that so easily in real life. So I learned when a man walked into the pipe and cigar shop frequent attired in biker gear. At first, the conversation proceeded respectfully and pleasantly enough. Something brought up disciplining children and he began to vehemently defend spanking, which he used as a bridge to talk about his Christian fundamentalism. When prodded, I revealed I was an atheist and answered that my autism is why I first became one, refusing to believe in a kind and loving God who would make me this way. That was when he told me that God did not make me autistic, vaccinations did. The words hit me like cannon fire and, with that, I saw before me the monster I had mistaken for a man.

Autistics learn to be proficient at emotional repression because our emotions nearly always serve us poorly. As tests go, you'd have to kill a friend or family member in front of me to give me a harder one. After his initial statement, he went on and on while I said nothing. Nothing could come out because I was focusing all my will into repressing my rage. Mercifully, it was time for a new cigar, so I rose and went to light it. My whole body was shaking, my fists clenched tightly, and my face hot, as I walked out of earshot to a friendly shopkeep to explain the situation. If, I explained, he ever wanted to see self-control, he should watch me now, because I was going to stand there and make myself calm down. I was going to go back over there and be friendly to that man, as I had before he told me vaccinations gave me autism, for two reasons. First, I was in a private business and had a responsibility to keep control. Second, because, I will argue with religious types, ghost hunters, and others full of nonsense, I will not argue with anti-vaxxers because they are impervious to reason. Ironically, I have been praised for being respectful and polite. On the contrary, I am disgusted and contemptful of this man on a level surpassed only by murderers and sexual predators.

-Frank