Focusing on friendships
Why we need a diverse ecosystem of different relationships to be healthy
A recent article from Dr. Ayesha Khan really struck home with me. So many of the autistic teens and young adults worry that they won’t find “the one,” and will thus live their lives lonely and alone. Where does this mindset come from?
The nuclear family came into the picture only a couple hundred years ago as colonialism transitioned into capitalism. In order to ensure domination & control, colonial empires separated people from their community by any means necessary- whether it was genocide to colonize lands or trans-continental slavery that maintained a steady supply of slave labor to maximize plantation profits. … The goal was always to fracture communal bonds and destroy communal ways of living that thrived thru collaboration, cooperation & abundant resource sharing. As the concept of community eroded, the nuclear family model rose to prominence.
The colonial small family structure was a tool strategically designed to divide & isolate people, making them easier to control, govern & exploit. It came with many layers of oppression across social constructs like gender, race & sexuality. A small family where a select few bonds are hyper-emphasized as “important” is ultimately an isolated unit that sees itself as separate from the collective & distinct from the larger ecosystem around it. This creates “us versus them” animosity between family units who then seek to secretly compete against each other for success and wealth under capitalism.
In other words, the current status quo is not the only way of being. There are other ways to form families and communities. But … but … but … conservative pundits say the communists want to ruin the family. Not true. Most who invoke the communist bogeyman have never read any Marxist literature, or Marx. They hope you haven’t either.
Yet, as a community, autistics tend to reject binaries. My being non-binary isn’t just a rejection of gender binaries but binaries of all kinds. It’s also a rejection of the us-vs-them mentality.
Relationship anarchy is a framework that translates these values to the realm of love. But the concept that there is strength in multiplicities & diversity isn’t just political, it is cultural & ancestral. This is how collectivist communities have existed outside the bounds of colonialism for eons. It is also how nature functions. A diverse ecosystem is a resilient, strong, adaptive ecosystem- with a web of many different inter and intra-species collaborations that don’t place a heightened importance on any single type of relationship. All are needed in order to maintain equilibrium & distress in any single relationship (often from externally introduced stress like capitalist destruction of the planet) causes ripples that will be felt throughout the ecosystem.
You may have to go “out of your way” to find people & that is ok.
Living in a capitalist society, particularly in “the West,” entails a carefully crafted infrastructure that presents significant challenges in finding individuals with whom one can develop strong relationships. These connections pose a potential threat to the fundamental principles of capitalist and colonial systems. Consequently, every aspect of our lives, from the daily grind of work that leaves us exhausted, to our reliance on impersonal, corporate grocery aisles devoid of a connection to the land or people, is deliberately designed to minimize the necessity of interacting with others.
Furthermore, understanding the necessary steps to build a community can be a daunting task without prior exposure to the concept of a healthy, collective society. This lack of familiarity often leads to feelings of isolation or choosing the path of least resistance by remaining alone. However, I have discovered that actively seeking out connections and going beyond the expected norms can be an empowering experience.
In reality, happiness comes from us experiencing love in many different forms.
Form intergenerational friendships around your interests. Join clubs. Use apps to join or form communities. Stretch out your conversational skills in ways that are comfortable to you. Just remember to check your assumptions along the way, and stay safe.
So much of what we believe has been embedded in our consciousness by the programming we received as children. That programming was sponsored by capitalist corporations and their government partners to help grow bottom lines, not sustain us in healthy relationships. Everything has been a commodity. With modern tech, we’re the commodity.
Break free of that and do what feels right and natural. Remember, we’re not separate from nature. We’re a vital part of it.