My Diagnosis 2: Arriving

So, the Professor leads us into his consulting room where there is a large desk and two guest chairs arranged in the room. One guest chair is just by the side of the desk and the other is off in the distance in the corner. It is patently obvious which one I should sit in so I immediately go to the chair in the corner whilst Vanessa perches next to the Professor’s desk.
He asks again whether we had a good journey, which proves to me that he has the memory capacity of a goldfish. He then asks why we have come. Ridiculous. He’s a world specialist on Asperger’s Syndrome, we’re sitting in his consulting room, and he asks why we’ve come.
What the hell does he think we’ve come for. I’m not about to ask for his advice on my golf swing am I. Fortunately, Vanessa, who was a lot closer to the memory-impaired and clearly confused old coot than I was, sweetly answered that we thought I might have Asperger’s and we’ve come along to get his opinion. Good answer but I wonder if it will penetrate the Professor’s fog of dementia and be understood. Maybe she should have spoken slower… and louder.
The Professor then looks at me, sat in the corner, on my own. At least, I assume he was looking at me as the sudden eye contact threw me into a panic; way too intense to look at the eyes of someone I had only just met. The Professor was now clearly trying to engage me in conversation by asking about things so banally tedious I genuinely feared that my brain might just stop working altogether. I smiled wanly and wondered how long the consultation would last. Maybe a nurse would come in soon and wheel out the geriatric Professor for his bed bath.
Just as I was calculating whether it would be considered rude to just doze off, Vanessa ventured that I had just written a book about my PhD research. The Professor looks at me again and asks what it’s about.
Now I know when I’m being played but talking about my research is like asking a crack addict if they care for a refresher. OK, Professor, you asked for it. Here’s the twenty minute condensed shorter than short version. But it turns out he’s interested. Not only that but he asks pertinent questions that make sense. He even suggests a reference I hadn’t previously considered, for goodness sake (I might have even written it down if I’d thought to bring anything with me to the consultation; as it is he emailed it to me later). This Professor is clearly brilliant, a top guy, and I am only grateful that I never make snap judgements about anyone.
All too soon, however, the conversation returns to Aspergers and the reason for our visit.