My opening anecdote for this one will only use initials. We
have a friend who we believe is on the Aspergers-Autism spectrum. He is smart
and high-functioning, but he does get lost in his thoughts pretty easily, and
he is not good at picking up social queues, especially from girls flirting with
him. We shall call him B.
When we were still getting to know him, we would hear things
back from other girls about how mean he was or how stuck on himself he was, and
it did not make sense at all, because we had found him really friendly and
engaging. We happened to share some interests, and we started a conversation
that was great, and we thought he was fine.
As we had more encounters and saw that you did need to work
to get his attention, and observed girls trying to hit on him, and figured out
whom the negative reports were coming from, it all started to make sense. Needy
insecure girls would try very hard to get B to ask them out, or to compliment
them, or something, they would fail miserably and decide he was a jerk.
This was not B’s fault. First of all, they were
game-playing, which most guys do not do well with anyway. Honestly, it’s the
guys who play the game exactly right that you should worry about. They don’t
usually get that way by being great boyfriend material. So the girls were
starting out wrong in the first place, and in the second place B had no idea
that there was even a game on.
I do not think this means that he can never be successful
romantically. What he will need is a woman who is confident in herself, not
only in that she does not need a lot of building up, but that she is
comfortable in asking for what she does need, clearly. Also, it would not hurt
her to keep something shiny in her pocket, maybe be willing to jangle keys or
something as the occasion warrants. I don’t think there is anything wrong with
that.
Anyway, I was watching a video by a band I like (not My
Chemical Romance in this case), and they were showing the drummer, and he was
really focused and in the zone, I guess, and it flashed over me that if B was a
drummer, that was exactly how he would play.
This is not in any way to imply that R (the drummer) is on
the spectrum as well, but it started me paying more attention to how musicians
play.
Not all of them get lost in their own little world.
Sometimes it is a shared world between two guitarists. With the Goo Goo Dolls,
Johnny Rzeznik and Robby Takac are very connected while playing. You totally
buy them as best friends.
There is room for different contexts as well. A musician in
the middle of composing, versus practicing, versus performing, is going to be
operating at different levels. Nonetheless, it is often easy to see that they
are being transported by the music.
Even if it’s not as easy to do now, I used to watch music
videos all the time, and they weren’t all elaborate shoots in Sri Lanka.
Sometimes it was just a band playing on a dark set with leaves flying around or
something. I enjoy these videos a lot too, though, because often you can see the
pure joy that they get from the performing. And if you think about what goes
into a regular film shoot, it’s amazing that they are looking joyful, because
this could easily be take 30, and they keep getting stopped in the middle for
touch-ups or camera adjustments, but there is still that love for what they do.
That’s why I can’t really be surprised when bands that used
to play arenas play small towns like Lewiston, Idaho, or when a few weeks after
your friend’s band breaks up, he’s formed a new one (or he’s in multiple bands
at the same time). It’s in their blood and they can’t stop.
I know there are girlfriends who hate this, and girlfriends
who appreciate the time off, and really, it can totally play havoc with the
schedule. It’s love, though, and so I can’t help but approve. Maybe that’s part
of why my experience with musicians has generally been that they are really
kind people. They have something bigger than the individual that brings them
together as groups, and then brings more people together for an audience. (And
no matter how many times you disappoint them, they will never quit inviting you
to their shows. They can’t.) I know there are obnoxious musicians, but it’s
more something I’ve heard about than experienced.
By the same token, it’s gratifying that when I listen to
interviews with the bands that I like they seem likable. Some of it could be
image control, but maybe their personality comes through their music, and
that’s where some of the chemistry comes from.
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