(This was yesterday.)
Overhearing Abe on the phone with a friend (I overhear a lot of these lol), they were talking about plans for the night — I heard the friend say "I wish Isaac could come out", or something to that effect. :)
I texted Abe: "invite me!"
Abe: "I don't want you to cry :("
Context: I had last attempted Going Out about a month ago, and it ended in tears of overwhelm. :) But I saw an opportunity to try something different next time. Retreating to the edges of the bar is a way to manage my sensory needs, but it's not a generative experience.
So! We made a plan:
* Abe holds my hand at all times. Figuratively, though frequently literally.
That's the whole plan. I can't *enter contexts* uninvited, and I can't read the kind of implicit invitations that get traded at bars. Abe can, though! I was basically his little ornamental dog in a handbag.
* Abe held me close the whole time, took me around with him.
* I looked out *over* the crowd virtually always, only making individual eye contact with people that someone in our ad-hoc cadre introduced me to.
* Ear plugs for when it got *really* loud.
And it *worked*. Abe's been saying all morning here how happy and excited he is that we had fun last night, talking about what hope this opens up for future times. This is a big deal. Abe's been going out without me for ... well, since my autism diagnosis.
Important to note: Abe reports that it was like 5% not ideal to be tethered to me nearly the whole time. He notes that it's good that things like bathroom breaks and "hey I want to go say bye to this guy, meet me by the exit?" are fair game; there's wiggle-room within the system.
I imagine that it'll get looser, more dynamic, as we go. Things like this tend to.
Really cool, though. :)