Due to my difficulties reading and understanding body language, I had a tendency to stare at people. I still do in fact. On the evening of Thursday, 12th January, 1995, I almost got into a fight in the college learning centre, with this man from Birmingham. He would be aged about 20 when this happened. He accused me of staring at him when I was waiting for some work to be printed out. I probably was staring at him, but it wasn't done in a provocative, "Are you looking at me? Do you want to deal with it outside?", kind of way. It was just that I was trying gage facial expressions.
He got aggressive and confrontational with me. I tried to explain that I didn't mean anything, but he wouldn't listen, and we almost came to blows, before learning centre staff came up and dealt with it. He was ordered to leave.
Almost four years later, in November 1998, I got a job at Wilkinson's stores. The Birmingham guy, having completed his degree (I learned later it was in Travel and Tourism), was working on security, to my surprise. I didn't know how to react, and I thought to myself, "I wonder if we will finish it off, here and now". I got my fists ready in case he started. No such thing occurred. He said "Hello" and I said the same. He told me he was doing it until Christmas, until he got a new job in banking. He apologised for what he did in January 1995, said that his behaviour was out of order and hoped I didn't hold it against him. I replied I didn't, and said I shouldn't have stared. We shook hands and left it at that, and whilst we didn't come friends, we were both civil with each other.
My staring got me into trouble again, on the evening of Thursday, 2nd March 1995. That evening, I was walking on Wakefield Road, when this guy in a Red Fiesta stared back at me. I walked up Old Road and went home. A few weeks later, on the night of Friday 7th April, I saw the guy in the Fiesta, and he said I had been staring at him, and that he was going to punch me for it, but I had disappeared. I said I wasn't. He remarked, "Well that's alright, it's done with now, but don't do it again". Though, if he was so hell-bent on doing so, he could have gone up Carlton Road, and drove down old road and got me there. I saw him a few times afterwards, and he said nothing to me, though it was 2000 when I have last saw him, to date.
Between September 1994 and November 1996, as you may have read, I worked at a nightclub called Hedonism, where I collected glasses. I hated it, and looking back, I can't understand how or why I survived in such an atmosphere or how I stuck it. If I die when I am 120 years old and retain my mental faculties, it will be a mystery. I was mentally overloaded every time I finished. When I got home I couldn't go to sleep, because the adrenalin was pumping in me, and I have never been a good sleeper at the best of times. That job did however, rekindle my interest in music though, and provided me with a few funny incidents I can recall, which I will describe later.
You may ask? "A nightclub? Phwooaarrr, I would have loved it. Weren't you getting stuck in? Getting your end away? All those women, I would have been having the time of my life". That wasn't the case for me. I never have had the self-confidence to approach or chat up a woman, due to a combination of a lack of confidence, difficulty reading body language, shyness and pride. Besides, whenever I have fancied one, or tried to chat them up, it often has got me into trouble. Maybe women did like me at the time, but I couldn't tell or notice. I often can't until or unless a woman makes it blatant. Don't forget, I am an Aspie, not an NT.
On Monday, 4th September, 1995, I was on the cloakroom, and because of the amount of people asking for coats at the same time, I got confused, and bungled it up. A similar incident would cause me to leave 14 months later. In November 1995, I can't recall the exact date, when alone, I kicked a tub which we used to take the bottles out, through frustration.
I remember saying on the evening of Thursday, 7th December 1995, to a learning centre support staff member that, "We are at the end of 1995 and January and February 1994 are almost two years ago, yet, we can still call them last year".
