Novella Chapter 1B - Asperger part 1: Narrow Pleasure.

Chapter 1B - Asperger part 1: Narrow Pleasure.

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I was maybe fourteen when I first felt it — that hollow ache in my chest when people laughed around me. They were smiling, eating, planning the next trip. I was there too, physically, but inside, I was somewhere else. Watching. Wondering. Why is everyone so sure this is what life is about?

I didn’t hate them. I just didn’t feel what they were feeling.

They enjoyed each other's presence — I noticed that. I saw a kind of warmth pass between them, effortless, natural. But for me, it always felt like pretending. I could mimic the laughter, even the small talk. But it didn’t come from the same place. It was like my body was acting while my mind stood behind glass.

At those gatherings, I often brought a book. Not just any book — usually something about religion, or history, or the meaning of suffering. While others were busy being alive, I was trying to understand why we were alive.

People called me curious. But it wasn’t curiosity. It was fear. A kind of fear too big for a child, too abstract to describe. Not a fear of monsters or darkness — but of meaninglessness. Of waking up one day and realizing everything I had worked for, hoped for, loved — was just dust. Forgotten.

I was sensitive to beauty — especially romantic beauty. When I heard love songs, I cried. I imagined holding someone close on a quiet beach at night. I longed for that. Not sex, not really. I longed for a moment where I could fully disappear into someone and still be seen.

But outside of those fantasies, life felt grey. I didn’t enjoy sports. I didn’t enjoy hanging out in groups. I didn’t find joy in the things others called joy. And I didn’t know why.

Later, I would read that some people feel that way because of how their brain works. That dopamine doesn’t respond the same way. That for some, pleasure is narrow — tied to intense, specific experiences, not spread evenly through life.

That knowledge helped. But it didn’t take away the feeling. That cold, constant whisper:
What if this world isn’t built for people like me?

And then came the bigger question, the one I didn’t say out loud for years:
If I can’t feel what others feel, is my suffering more real — or less?


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