I tended and still do tend to prefer my own company or that of a few selected people. I don't have a large group of friends. I play a few games, mainly ones that test your knowledge rather than shooters or other such games.

I can illustrate a few instances of differences between narcissists and autistics. When I was in Year Nine, a boy in my class who was not a nice boy, was bouncing a basketball on my head. After a few times, I yelled at him, "R-A-C-K-O-F-F!" And the little bastard said, "Ooh, rack off." He knew damn well that what he was doing was harassment and he gained a sick, perverse pleasure out of it. By comparison, I remember one night, when I was 19, I arrived home and one of my father's employee's girlfriends was there and she stayed for dinner. She was nothing like me, and later, my mother said that had she been sitting near me, she would have kicked me under the table. I wasn't saying anything inappropriate; I was just talking about an assignment at university, and I couldn't tell that the woman wasn't really interested, and my mother couldn't understand why I couldn't detect that.

My father has said that I can have a child-like innocence about me at times, and that my face can light up when something I'm interested in is being discussed. I remember when I was a kid, I used to hate going to visit my paternal grandparents because they lived on acreage and my brother was very sporty. Whenever we went out there, he always wanted to play sport, but I found it easier to relate to my grandparents than my brother. I confronted my mother one day, and she said, "Oh, but you shouldn't be inside with your grandparents, you should be outside." Some of it, I now realise, was projection. My mother bore a great deal of resentment towards my paternal grandparents and kept that side of the family at arm's length. I have three autistic cousins, and I was kept from developing the closeness with them that I needed. Two of those cousins are female. I find it easier to talk to women than men, and that's partly why I am transitioning. Another instance that I remember was when we went to a colleague of my father's husband's 50th Birthday Party. I sat and talked to a woman old enough to be my mother, and we got on well. I had to keep out of my mother's field of vision, however, as she would have come across and said, "Go and sit with the kids." I was 12 at the time. The colleague's son used to give me hell.