relationships – T E Shepherd

Ten years on: courting days through email subject lines

Thomas — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 21:13:05 +0000

Ten years ago, Emma and I were exchanging daily emails that led up to our first date. During that time the subject lines were every bit as important part as the emails themselves. It’s fun just to read them back a decade on, just on their own…

Emma: Match.com alert: EmEJ has winked at you!
Emma: Did you say you were a writer?
Thomas: RE: Did you say you were a writer?
Emma: Hello Mr. Writer
Thomas: Greetings Miss Vet
Emma: [subject blank]
Thomas: RE: beech woods and kittens
Emma: The Owl And The Woodpecker
Thomas: Over Sea, Under Stone
Emma: What a coincidence…..
Thomas: Calling flat number 1-9. Calling flat number 1-9…
Emma: Good evening, Mr Thomas,
Thomas: Good morning, Miss Emma,
Emma: Thomas it is then!
Thomas: Milk, no sugar, and possibly even black and in a glass…
Emma: Well Hello Mr Shepherd,
Thomas: Life’s what happens to you when you are making other plans
Emma: Positive Mental Attitude!?
Thomas: Positiveness is what you need *cue trumpet solo*
Emma: Oh, dedication!
Thomas: Oh, perseverance!
Emma: A message from the very scary Emma….
Thomas: A message from (normal is boring) Thomas…
Emma: A message from Paparazzi Emma (I like that, it sounds good!)
Thomas: Hoping that I don’t get stage fright on Saturday after a build up like that…
Emma: You bloody well not get stage fright on Saturday!
Thomas: Maybe now isn’t that best time to tell her I’m actually mute!
Emma: From a Confused psychopath of Amersham.
Thomas: Umm, must remember to bring my pepper spray along with me…
Emma: Tommorow never knows…..
Thomas: …and where will be the day after tomorrow?
Emma: Today’s the day.
Thomas: Not just memories
Emma: Fit as a fiddle.
Emma: You just said I love you!
Thomas: RE: You just said I love you!
Emma: Another World
Thomas: Peculiar as a Piccolo
Thomas: but a good world, I hope?
Emma: To my blue eyed boy
Thomas: It’s not easy being blue; being the colour of so few ordinary things…
Emma: Now then, Are you paying Attention?
Thomas: It’s the Muppet Show tonight!! {cue fanfare}
Emma: Anticipation, excitement and Butterflies.
Emma: Discraceful Behaviour!
Thomas: Utterly discraceful!
Emma: Sunday, the day after yesterday.
Thomas: The Whole Horse
Emma: And nothing but the horse.
Emma: Hello dearest
Thomas: RE: Hello dearest
Thomas: And not a papier-mâché horse in sight…
Thomas: So what did you say it was?
Emma: Tuesday, all day.
Thomas: Is it really Wednesday
Emma: Jobs, home, life!
Emma: RE: Is it really Wednesday
Thomas: Wednesday? Not anymore it’s not…
Thomas: Work to live, not live to work
Emma: Raining cats and dogs
Thomas: Cats and dogs? More like Cows and horses…
Emma: Contrasts….
Thomas: RE: Worry not silly boy
Thomas: [Addentum] Worry not silly boy
Emma: Walking, shopping, recycling and house hunting
Thomas: RE: Walking, shopping, recycling and house hunting
Thomas: Ronald: The Face
Emma: My address
Emma: AAAAAGH!
Emma: Surprise!
Thomas: Surprises are great!
Emma: Monday.
Thomas: RE: Monday.
Emma: Tuesday
Emma: A quick note to say…
Thomas: Little House In The Country
Thomas: [Additionally] Little House In The Country
Thomas: More of Monday
Thomas: [Additionally] More of Monday
Emma: Friday already!
Thomas: RE: Friday already!
Thomas: Thank you for the weekend

A love/hate relationship with St Valentine

Thomas — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 19:47:18 +0000

I’ve never received the quintestential anonymous Valentine’s Day card. Indeed I’ve only ever received two cards that have not have been from wife – and they were from my fiancé before she was my wife. Growing up, and beyond into adulthood, I liked the idea of Valentine’s Day but also feared it.

When I was little I think I (wrongly) assumed that every everyone got Valentines but me, but in all honesty I don’t think I would have known what to do if one had been sent to me. You see, not that I knew it then, but I have Aspergers, and for people on the autism spectrum the world of dating can be a minefield.

How do you even meet someone on your wavelength in a world that can be socially confusing?
How do you flirt if you are uncomfortable making eye contact?
How do you prevent yourself from only talking about stuff you’re interested in?

I think this video, shared today by the National Autistic Society, by 19 year-old Gerard Stone probably explains it all far better than I ever could…

I never set out to conciously write romance and love into my books, just as I never conciously set about writing characters with Aspergers. Completely unimportant to the story, but Ben in The End Of All Worlds is almost certainly on the spectrum. In my second novel, Mr Tumnal, Louis Tumnal definitely is. In his character you see both a character at odds with the world (not just because of any bewitchment by the Fairy Queen), and saved in more ways than one by the love of a girl he meets and with whom he somehow forms a relationship.

Today I wrote a love poem for Kathryn Summers from Louis Tumnal. Louis Tumnal couldn’t have said this directly, of if he did, his voice would have been a gibbering, inarticulate mess. But from his pen, in the first year after meeting, he could articulate exactly his feelings.

It could also be a love poem from a few years ago from Me to my wife, Emma. Love you Emma. xxx

On the first day of advent: reflections on who I am

Thomas — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:51:00 +0000

The recently broadcast Newsround Special: My Autism and Me about living with aspergers prompted some further thoughts about my own life particularly in respect to where I would be without the internet. It’s a brilliant video and one that I would urge everybody to watch, at least once, and maybe more than once.

I guess primary, if it wasn’t for the internet then I wouldn’t have the job that I love. Not that I ever trained for this job, or imagined that I would be here, now, doing things on the web that people who don’t work on the web imagine to be some new form of magic. It’s not, but its a nice to imagine that it might be. I fell into website via publishing, being the person for taking other people’s highly crafted and edited scientific journals and making them appear in an online form. Now I build websites, both inside and outside of my formal ’employed’ hours, and I’m getting my hands dirty with the dark arts of social networking. Some people run scared from any kind of social networking, put off by the scare stories and privacy concerns that you get reported in the media, but I embrace them now. I wouldn’t have my job if it were not for social networking and beyond that I wouldn’t have my life.

Ten years ago I was bullied at work (something that I have spoken about before in these pages), and it was during the process of dealing with this, doing something about it, and eventually realising that the person responsible was nothing more than a pathetic, little, shit, …that I came to learn that I might, possibly be affected with aspergers. The discovery, higlighted by my brilliant cousin, made sense – it made a lot of sense, but it was not for another 3 years, and the assistance of possibly the best manager ever, that I got to see and receive coaching from Bill.

After my initial investigation into aspergers back in 2002, I decided that I needed to try/start to be more confident in myself and put myself out there a bit more. Baby steps and all. I became a company first aider, and joined the social committee. I also started an online journal. At the beginning of it, I didn’t know what to write. I guess there was part of me that wanted to be read – hey, I’m a writer and hope one day to be published! – but at the same I really didn’t want to feel like I was writing for anyone, and to be read. I quickly discovered two important rules:

if you write something thinking its going to be interesting, then its not…
…but if you write what you find interesting then people do enjoy reading/commenting on it

Why social networking has become important to me

LiveJournal was my first foray into social networking, and of its kind was probably my first love. Principally I have felt secure in the way that you can limit the readership of posts to private (not yet done), friends only, any multitude of smaller friends groups, or public. This freedom has enabled me to write more openly about things, and to open up in public posts too in ways that I would not have expected I could have.

LiveJournal, and the support I got from my friends there, gave me the confidence to go on online dating sites, and I developed the profile there within tightly locked friends filters. Thus, without LiveJournal, I would not have met Emma and may well still be single to this day.

The likes of facebook and twitter (what you might more readily call social networking) are purely an extension of the LiveJournal experience. I have got back in contact with people whom I should not have lost contact with but did because at the time I did not have the social skills to keep in contact. It has blended the online LiveJournal friends world with the face-to-face friends world. When it comes to twitter, it a) serves as a lazy way to easily post to facebook and also to these journal pages, and b) to network and get jobs. I am better at sticking my hand up and voicing my opinions, but I am still not good in that crowded room. I have made contacts via twitter that I would not have made face-to-face and furthered my freelance web design business as a result.

Some people consider social networking as antisocial, but for someone like me who can still struggle with those face-to-face social cues, social networking – far from being anti-social – has actually made me more social; more Me.

Home Alone

Thomas — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:53:00 +0000

I am home alone. I saw Emma (very briefly) between work and going out for she has gone to try on wedding dresses with her Mum and sister. Itâs the first time since Em moved with me almost two months ago that I have been at home in the evening and Emma hasnât and I feel awkward and empty. Itâs annoying because really I should be taking this opportunity to watch some of the hours of tele recorded on my digi-box, or write something to my novel, but I canât. I faff, and move listlessly from nothing in particular to nothing whatsoever.

I think partly itâs because I should be doing something towards moving but Iâve done everything that I can and so there isnât anything, but my brain hasnât quite grasped this…

Naturally Companionable

Thomas — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:53:00 +0000

Today was mostly taken up with taking a (beastly wet) drive down to Fareham with Emma and her sister for Sunday lunch with Grandma and Aunty Gill who was over from the States (yes, Emma too has relatives in the New England-ish area…).

This evening I have been making my already eclectic music collection a little bit more cool by ripping some of Emmaâs collection to my computer. Whilst I do this on one side of the dining room table, Emma has been sorting through 2006 era photos ready for having them printed. Even though we were doing separate things, I found the whole evening just so romantic and lovely.

I guess really, I ought to think about making my way home…