Fake Yes

You say yes—and instantly wish you hadn’t.

Something gets recommended or suggested with a little sparkle around it, and going along is easier than pausing to ask your literal self for a ruling.

So now it’s happening.

The podcast is playing. A show is on. The plan is real now. Hobby supplies are out, taking up space already.

None of it catches.

It’s fine. Decent. Possibly works wonderfully in another nervous system.

You can understand the appeal in a courtroom-evidence kind of way.
Exhibit A: people love this.
Exhibit B: they seem sincere.
Exhibit C: no one’s blinking for help.

Regardless, nothing in you opens.

Your attention drifts, gets hauled back, then drifts again. Interest refuses to appear, even after being offered snacks and reasonable accommodations. You try to meet the thing halfway but halfway seems to be located in a field sans address.

Oh, the misery of fake yes.

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Sure, it looks like participation. You respond at the right moments. Hang out long enough. Keep the machinery oiled. No one’s filing a missing person report for your enthusiasm.

Yet it still takes from the pantry. Focus, patience, the nice crackers you were saving for what actually fed you.

And because nothing is obviously wrong, the blame turns inward fast. Maybe attention is the problem. Maybe enjoyment is another life skill everyone else learned while you were busy memorizing how to appear normal in restaurants. Responsibility looks a lot like forced enthusiasm and keeping things contained.

So fake yes continues getting invited back.

One reasonable selection at a time, life fills with stuff chosen from the outside in. Books finished out of principle. Shows completed since ending after four episodes felt like admitting defeat. Plans attended because explaining the truth required too many words and possibly a diagram.

Eventually those choices create a curious exhibition hall of almost-selves.

Here lies the hiking person.
Here rests the book club person.
Here slumps the weekly craft person, surrounded by remarkable supplies and a mild sense of doom.

Real yes is distinct.

Real yes doesn’t need to be dragged across the floor by its ankles. It has its own legs. It might show up through something impractical or impossible to explain without waving your hands around, but it works.

Attention settles because it finally has somewhere to go, and curiosity leans in, lacking the need to be bribed.

Fake yes asks you to keep showing up.

Real yes makes showing up feel like coming back.

— Autistic Ang

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