Christians and Kais: An Average Visit From my Introverted Friend

WARNING: Slight Spoiler for a Season 3 Episode of Cobra Kai

When it comes to being friends, Dusty and I are an interesting match, and it is not because my house is two floors not counting an attic or basement and his is a 4 room apartment. It is also not the fact that he is a localized technophobe, as in he is a technophobe when it comes to technology past the VERY early 2000s. One time for example I actually had to go on Amazon to find him Gamecube controllers because his broke and he under NO CURCUMSTANCES will upgrade the console to even a Wii. Localized though because it only applies to HIS place. He has no problem coming over and playing my XBox One, or using my internet, which he also doesn't have. Also spending twenty minutes seeing what commands will do what with my Amazon Dot is not a problem with him. I should point out other than the last one I have no issues with him doing these things. Except for maybe except for the Amazon Dot one because sometimes the thing tells him he has to add/activate something and he approves it without checking with me first, plus my cat does not like other cats and thinks when it meows it is another cat so she goes ballistic. I just find it funny that he has no issues with technology provided it is not in his house.

If you have not figured it out, I am a near cutting edge tech guy. Meaning my levels of technology don't HAVE to be on the cutting edge, just close enough that they are still usable, for example, my XBox One, I probably won't get the next one until the releasing of new games start slowing down for what I have. My Amazon Dot is a generation 4, upgraded from a Generation 2, so THAT should tell you how long I waited to get it and I even waited for a sale before I did that. No it is not our house differences, nor our technology differences that make us an interesting match, it is what our Mental Health Issues have done to our, let's call them socialization requirements, that make us an interesting match.

I am diagnosed now as a High Functioning Autistic, back when every MHI had to have its own name no matter how close it was to another one I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. Normally, and again just so we are clear, NORMALLY this MHI causes trouble with socialization, issues with touch, sensitivity to loud and/or sudden noises, repetitive motion and the “brain to mouth/action filter” not working as it should. To clear that last one a little, everybody has a voice that tells them when it is not okay so say or do something. A person with this MHI has a harder time either listening to that voice or sometimes needs the cons of doing something to outweigh the pros more than most people would. To give you an example, during my first ever Save Against Fear, a role playing game convention James, the head of the organizing organization was disappointed an event, a pro wrestling RPG, had not happened. So, James went on stage and did an in character promo of his wrestler to hype that the event would happen next year. A normal person would have let him finish his promo and move on. If it not obvious by now, I AM NOT NORMAL. James barely gets done with his promo when he hears a shout from the crowd that is NOT cheering.

“Whoa Whoa Whoa! Just a minute there Rolls!” he hears, having based his wrestler off of Dusty Rhodes and calls himself “The Roleplaying Dream” Rusty Rolls. Anyhow, I storm the stage, pretend to grab a mic, and fire back with an in character promo of my own. Sure this aspect of my MHI has gotten me in some hot water once or twice (this wasn't one of them) but all and all I have fun. The weird part is though is why I do these things, despite what my MHI says I should want, which is to shy away from socialization, the truth is I actually crave it.

So, what does this have to do with me and Dusty you might ask? Dusty was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, in his mind Murphy's Law is as unbreakable as the law of gravity. For example, he thinks it is amazing I went to Israel, but won't make the trek himself. By plane? The plane will crash, not might crash, in his mind it will, no argument. By cruise ship? Nope, he knows the ship he is on will sink. And it not just fear of flying or going on water, once over here when he is ready to leave he'll ask for me to walk him home because he will be mugged, but yet had no issue walking over to my place solo. Unprovoked he will announce what I have called his “Single Timer”, basically you know how if asked an alcoholic if you ask him will tell you how long he has been sober, Dusty does this with being single, down to the day, even if you don't ask him, he's at like 12 years now and takes more pride in it than the previously mentioned alcoholic would at being sober. Don't ask him about getting a girlfriend though because he has been cheated on so many times that it has wrecked him for life, pay no attention to the fact that the longest one, which lasted two years was while he was just getting out of high school, or close to it (he's nearly 50 now) and that 99.99% of them could barely qualify as a summer romance in length (one of which HE ended in 24 hours). Any way this track record has damaged him to the point that if God Himself came down and told Dusty to date somebody, Dusty wouldn't do it. That is not just my thought, Dusty told me that himself. Don't argue about any of this with him though, because then he will call you judgmental as he gets angry “in a righteous sense” (his words) and lock himself in his apartment. I could go on, but I think you see the point I am trying to make. His anxiety disorder has made him an introvert.

Anyhow, you've basically gotten a look at our cast mentally. One day I am in my living room, smacking some enemies with a baseball bat in Fallout 4, hey man don't judge, it's my day off and they charged at me. So as I said, I am mid game of Fallout 4 when the door leading to the first floor hallway from my basement opens up, I hear two foot steps, and the door shut. Only one person I know who does that, everybody else says “Hi” as they are coming up, sort of reminds me of Sam from Clarissa Explains it All, in that entire show only one person used a ladder to get to Clarissa's windowsill, so when she heard that ladder hit the sill she knew who was coming, same thing here.

“Hey Dusty,” I say as I drop another foe, a Raider this time without even having to look at the door knowing who it is, Dusty walked in to the living room and sits in a “old person's” recliner I got from my grandmother's house when she died. I call it an old person's recliner because it has a remote that not only makes it so you can recline, but so you can go the other way, yes, it helps you get up out of the chair as well in case you have trouble with that.

“Hi Shane,” he says and he starts up with his sister this time, third visit this week and second time he brings up a fight he and his sister had like three weeks ago. While I am glad he sees me as a sounding board there are days I would love to hear something positive come from his mouth, but I remind myself that it is his anxiety order talking to him. During the conversation I do something stupid and mention how the Bible says we are to love those that hate us. It is not stupid because he is a non Christian, quite the opposite, every time he says his name, or anything about himself he mentions he is a God fearing man, but to mention that is stupid because I know his response “How am I supposed to love somebody who hates me?” and “You don't understand Shane, if you talked to her for 5 minutes you wouldn't be able to stand her either,”

“This isn't me telling you this, it's the Bible telling you do to this, and yes I know it is hard, but God tells us to do it,” I respond.

Dusty looks like he is about to continue this argument but instead asks “Can we watch Kai En Tai?” I chuckle again as I go to quit out of my game.

“You mean Cobra Kai, right,” I respond, knowing what he wants as I load up my Netflix account.

“Yeah, why do I always call it that?” he asked.

“No idea,” is my response as I fire up an episode from Season 2 that I saw several months ago, I am trying to catch him up to where I am because when I watch my episodes he makes comments based on what is going on but he doesn't know the full story behind it. For example, one time the two dojos were fighting in an empty laser tag factory when one of the women from the Cobra Kai dojo came in and called for Sam to come out and fight her, even with threatening to break one her friends' arms if she didn't come out. Sam dove for cover, curled up in to a ball and hid, Shane spent the entire scene yelling at her to get up and fight. Dusty hadn't seen seen the school wide fight that wrapped up season 2 and gave Sam PTSD when it came to this woman. Because of that when he wants to watch the show I have him watch the older episodes in order to catch him up. Sure enough once the episodes are done he is ready to head for home, and asks me to walk him there, most times I do because he is only a few blocks away. I walk him home and swing by a dollar store on the way back to get a soda, as I twist the top and hear the PSSST from the gas escaping the bottle, I look to the sky and thank the Lord for my interesting, introverted friend.