The hidden numeral

My eyes were firmly closed and I was having trouble getting my words out.

‘Look at me,’ she said. But I couldn’t.

I was so overwhelmed that the simple act of using my eyes to see would dazzleblind the rest of my brain.

I was trying to explain why I didn’t understand her emotional reaction to what had seemed to me — still seems to me — to be a simple factual disagreement.

Fact (X) plus Fact (Y) leads to Conclusion (Z).

X+Y=Z. 2+2=4.

2+2=4 is inarguable (outside of Oceania), but it seemed to me — still seems to me — that she was firmly, adamantly and inexplicably insisting that 2+2=5.

I wasn’t looking for a fight, and neither was she. I had no intention to offend, nor was she seeking an opportunity to perform offence.

‘You were so dismissive, so offhand,’ she said, visibly hurt.

I am old, I have many adaptations, my ASD is only ‘mild’ — I can tell when someone is upset, especially her.

Well of course I was dismissive. 2+2=4. End of conversation, topic dismissed, onto the next thing. What else could there possibly be to add? There’s no nuance there, no subtle inflection, no room for debate. It’s simple maths. Fact. End of.

But she wouldn’t move on. She became emotional and I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. How does a point of logic, a calculation of known values and their outcomes, provoke emotion?

‘I don’t think you’ve properly grasped exactly what it means to live with someone who is autistic,’ I said.

But how could I help her grasp it? I struggled to find the words, but I couldn’t.

Take another breath. Turn the problem around. Could I understand what it’s like to be her? Not really. Not emotionally, not in my guts.

Express it as a problem of logic, then.

‘It’s like this.’

I force out the words slowly, with long pauses in between them; she knows me well enough to not interrupt, to give me the time to order my chaotic thoughts.

‘It’s as if we are seeing different equations.

‘I see facts, logic, dispassionate integers. 2+2=4. But I have blinkers on. There are some numerals I literally cannot see.

‘You see something different. You see 2+2 but you also see +1. You see 2+2+1=5. And that 1 is the emotional component. You intuitively grasp that every human calculation has an emotional aspect.

‘But I don’t. That 1, that numeral, is hidden from me. I literally cannot see it, sometimes it remains elusive even when it is pointed out to me with great care and patience.

‘So there is a hidden numeral in every calculation I make. And sometimes that is a strength — it makes me better at my job, it makes me better at logistical problem solving. But other times it makes me seem crass, uncaring, ‘a cold fish’.

‘I’m not uncaring, though. I simply don’t see the hidden numeral, and so occasionally my sums come out wrong.’

And she understood that, and we hugged, and it was better.

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