Autistic Hedgehog

[Trained by society to be terrified of being seen as rude

Too polite to slam door in Bible thumpers’ faces]

Yes, this really happened to me a few days ago. I may never open the front door again.

Our outer doorbell rang, and as usual when I’m not expecting it, I froze up. It didn’t ring a second time, and I wrote it off as mail (we are waiting on Christmas packages after all) and that there’d be a slip for it before long. 

Then a few minutes later some mail did indeed come through the slot, so I went to retrieve it. As I turned to head back to my computer and work, the inner doorbell rang. Thinking it must be a package, I went to open the door without looking out first. It turned out to be a pair of Russian women on a mission (pun kinda intended). They’d mistaken my husband’s middle name, Kruchov, for Russian (it’s Polish. Ouch.) and decided to assail me with their tidings of a free Bible study club. Multilingual and everything.

I mean, as door-to-door Bible thumpers go, they were nice. When I explained I was agnostic (and subsequently explained what that even meant) they didn’t tell me I’d go to hell or anything if I didn’t change my ways. But they did ask some questions and I found myself at a loss for what to do. It’s really awkward when you have to bite your tongue on what you’d actually respond. “Do you think you don’t need God in your life?” (Um, pretty sure that if God does exists, whether or not I need Him is kinda moot.) “Haven’t you ever wondered where we go after death? The Bible tells us.” (Yeah, not an expert or anything, but far as I know, the Bible doesn’t go into specifics.)

I don’t think I could have looked more uncomfortable if I tried. And since I was trying to be polite and make eye contact, but was wildly uncomfortable at the same time, I’m pretty sure I looked like one of those cat wall clocks with the eyes that tick back and forth. Yet despite the fact that they were imposing on me, I couldn’t even get myself to say “I’m sorry, but I really need to get back to work.”

Over-politeness training is a problem in certain areas of our culture, and autistics seems to get it worse than almost anyone else. Most people would at least be able to excuse themselves. Goodness knows my husband, who’s an atheist, would have merrily shut the door in their faces. But even afterwards, I kept making excuses for them, despite the fact that they came unprovoked to my door simply because they saw what looked like a Russian name in the middle of a very clearly not Russian name. 

This fear of being seen as rude that gets trained into us really blows. We have just as much right to stand up for ourselves as anyone else. But despite the fact that I’m turning 28 in January, I’m still unable to bring myself to utter a politely worded request to go away out of sheer terror. How is that fair?