When I was a first year University undergraduate, I lived in
a hall of residence. This was not nice but made partly bearable by having a
large contingent of Chinese students about the place. Most couldn’t speak much
English, which was fine by me, but those that could often shared something
about their culture, which was great as it made interacting with other people
educationally meaningful rather than completely pointless. Until that year, I
honestly thought the Chinese word for “Egg Fried Rice” was “Number 42”.
Apparently not but I can’t say I remember now what it was.
One weekend, Vanessa visited and, using the communal
washroom one evening, shared the line of basins with a Chinese girl. She was a
nice girl who had Room Number 26 or “Pork Chop Suey” in English. Anyway, making
the sort of pleasantries that I am told are called for in such situations, they
fell into a conversation. At the end of it, the Chinese girl said to Vanessa
“I’m sorry but have we met before?” Vanessa demurred at which the Chinese girl
explained “It’s just you all look alike to me”.
Vanessa found the comment ironic but, to me, it made perfect
sense. People do all look the same. It’s not just facial features I can’t
recognise with my Aspergers, but whole faces. For example, I’m a nightmare to
watch a film with since, as well as spouting fascinating trivia about the film,
its production, and events depicted on screen every two minutes, I cannot
usually tell one actor from another unless they have a huge scar or only one
leg. So I’ll be waxing lyrical about the enthralling habits of the white-tipped
reef sharks that are just about to eat James Bond while checking with Vanessa
that the villain on screen is the same Emilio Largo that Bond met earlier on
the boat. If I am on my own, I often resort to reading the script just to know
who’s who. I can just about cope with the Muppets but real people – forget it.
That has it’s downsides, such as the time when I started
work in a large office during my mid-twenties. On my first day, I had resigned
myself to shaking hands a lot and took comfort in the fact that nobody would
expect to be hugged. I subscribe to the theory that while shaking hands is
merely unhygienic, a hug is full-on assault. Anyway, I was duly marched along a
line of tiny offices, each holding a man in a suit I was expected to greet
cordially. I would stick out my hand, accept the transfer of goodness knows how
many germs, tell the person with as much sincerity I could muster how glad I
was to meet them and move on. It would have gone fine except that one complete
Womble decided to move offices half way through. He started in the first
office, where I duly shook his hand, then moved to the end office - my final
destination. I did not notice.
I entered said office, leading what was now a considerable
entourage as it seemed everyone in the entire organisation was playing
‘follow-the-new-guy’ in that gormless but friendly way people in large
corporations or with frontal lobotomies are wont to do. They immediately knew I had met the Charlie
sitting behind the desk before. With my limited facial recognition – not to say
the considerable stress of the entire situation – I did not. I reverted to form,
thrust out my hand, and told him how nice it was to meet him. The entourage
fell silent as he looked at my bacteria-laden hand with distain. “We met”, he
said in a low voice, “two minutes ago”. It was embarrassing. I knew that. So
God only knows the reason for what came out of my mouth next. “My word!” I said
breezily, “You were certainly memorable”. He did not speak to me again.
