The Drama

There aren't many studies on the Autistic mind, so I cannot say with certainty that MB1 contains something that keeps Autistic people awake, but I believe that MB1 has been keeping me awake the past 4 days. I haven't slept more than 4 hours a night since I began taking it. So, today, I was exhausted. We also had two big K Pop Demon Hunters events today at the same time. I knew that when I agreed to an 8:50 pm movie though. I wanted to see him regardless. We’ve been talking on the phone for nearly a month while he’s been out of town, I'm going out of town, and this was the best time we could work out. 

“Allah, I would like to have a husband that has a life outside of me and lots of ambition” Me in February 2026

By 6pm, the exhaustion took hold of me. I found myself itching to cancel on him. I found myself hoping he would cancel on me, so that I didn't have to see him. I found myself filled with dread and skepticism. I did not act on that though. Instead, Dani, Aliza, Kara, Brittyn, and I wandered around Sephora touching up our makeup and spritzing perfume for our upcoming dates. Dani was seeing her comedian, Brittyn was seeing her handsome 6’3 doctor, Kara was enjoying a weekend away from her boyfriend, and Aliza was recounting her date gone wrong from the night before. 

“He hasn't confirmed yet?” Dani asked me. 

“Nope” I pretended to be disappointed while applying YSL Lash Clash. 

“I'm seeing Bill tonight, maybe we’ll see a movie too…” she said mysteriously. 

“Girls…can I be honest. Can I keep it a buck?” I smiled sheepishly. “I'm kind of hoping Omar cancels.” 

Everyone looked incredibly confused except for Dani, who looked at me like I was stupid. “Why?” She squinted at me.

“I don't know…I'm nervous. I'm overstimulated by him.” I explained. 

Brittyn gave her usual advice. “Girl! He's handsome, but you're still so out of his league.” 

I just said “yeah” and moved on. I didn't feel like explaining that the problem isn't that I don't think I'm beautiful enough for him or hot enough. The problem is that I like him a lot. I don't like him because he's super handsome. He is super handsome though. The issue is that he was away for a month and we spent hours on the phone where I became attracted to his personality and began to see him as human. I know men are human…in a way. It's just difficult to see them as human the way the rest of us are human. I don't understand what they think, or why they think, or even what they could be thinking about. What do they want? What hurts them? What makes them feel loved? Are they capable of complex thought? I know that some are…a select minority of them. I know that the ones who are not capable are victims of patriarchal neglect. I understand those ones. The real horror to me is those who have overcome their circumstances to achieve thoughtfulness, emotional intelligence, and thought processing close to or even…on par with Women and They/Thems. I want this. Really I do. However, it does scare me. Omar can read fiction. Not only can he read it, but he also enjoys it. He is imaginative, quick witted, and ambitious. He is similar to me. He has a real job and still devotes time to actively pursuing an artistic career. He actually does it, he doesn't just talk about wanting to do it. He is doing it and doing it despite the attitudes of his immigrant family. All in all, I was very nervous about this date. 

       “Just confirm!” Dani groaned, throwing her head back and flailing her arms. “Just text him and say ‘are we good for tonight’!” 

“I kind of want him to cancel though…” I said sheepishly. 

“No you don't! You like him so much. You're just scared and being weird. Stop!” She pressured me.

She was right of course. I was autismmaxxing. I had to stop being weird, so I used all my courage to send a very brave text. 

Iman: Is this the right theater? 

Omar: hey! I missed this. I'm sorry. Yes, that's the right theater. I'll be there in 40 min :) 

Iman: oki 

Omar: maybe more like twenty :) 

Iman: oki 

“Okay, he confirmed” I updated everyone as we crossed 14th and 4th. 

Aliza and Dani were still shopping when I left. They were looking for outfits to wear on our upcoming trip to Jamaica. I walked back to Broadway, turned right, and then saw Omar walking directly in front of me. If I weren't so weird and nervous, I would have caught up to him and started the date right then and there, but I am. So, I needed extra time to regulate. I kept my pace and entered the theater about 30 seconds after him. I actually started stimming when I saw his profile, so I did have to step away and get it together again before texting him that I was there. Lowkenuinely, I am not a phony autistic person like some of you weirdos that want to fabricate a quirky personality because you're embarrassed about not having any interesting personality traits because your parents were too nice to you. I had to click my heels three times, tap my leg twice, and remember to make eye contact when speaking before I came around the corner and met that man.

 He was entirely dysregulating. 

He looked like he hadn't slept in 3 days and still was so insanely handsome. He had a five o'clock shadow, his thick curls were in desperate need of styling or at least some pomade, he had bags under his eyes, his outfit didn't quite go together, and he was still super effing handsome. What the f*cky? To add insult to injury, he smiled upon seeing me and pulled me in for a hug. My fault, he doesn't know I find him overstimulating. At first I was white knuckling it, but after a moment, his grounded energy overcame me and I quickly regulated. When he let me go, I wasn't nervous anymore. It was super cool! I felt like I was nuerotypicalmaxxing. 

He was calm or at least he presented that way. I'm working on not deciding how people feel for them. We navigated our way to the floor our movie was on and when we passed the concessions, he asked if I wanted anything. Polite. Regal is a Pepsi establishment and I'm a Coke Zero Diva, so I politely declined. I shared with him that I don't want it because it's Pepsi which he found amusing.

 “What's the difference?” He asked. 

“I don't know, it's just different.” I replied. 

He smiled and shook his head. “Okay.” 

He picked out good seats. Towards the center, 5 rows from the top. Regal is just a horrible movie theater compared to AMC. The seats don't recline, there are way too many people in the theater with you, and it was hot in there. I kept those thoughts to myself though. I was happy to be with him. We settled in and chatted about our days. Whenever I talk to him, I end up talking more than him. I try to be cognizant of it and ask him questions, but he insists that he prefers to listen. He does listen a lot and he gives great, thoughtful feedback. A lot of people give feedback on my business issues, it's just usually not thoughtful and it's almost always very annoying. Usually the annoying feedback is someone coming up with a “solution” that's literally the easiest possible thing to come up with that I've already thought of and it doesn't work. A conclusion that anyone that regards me as having even an average IQ would think I'd have gotten to on my own, but they don't. Either they think I'm stupid or they love to hear the sound of their own voice. Either way, it's annoying. Omar doesn’t do that though. His tone is consistently mollifying in the first place. The Bay Area vocal fry, gentle depth, and laid-back pace have been like Xanax to my Floridian soul. Today, at the theater, in his Bay Area voice, he assured me he knows I'm training my girls, but encouraged me to host a big training day to catch everyone up. Something I've already thought of, but wondered if it was too unnecessary. He was certain I'd thought of it, but 

“Some people really do need to be told exactly how to manage things. It's going to take a lot of stress away from you” he said while looking me directly in the eyes inches away from my nose. 

I nodded and moved on in the conversation, not wanting to talk about my business anymore. 

Writing this for you now, in retrospect, I understand that he was showing me romantic interest all night. I didn't process that in the moment. I feel silly writing it down now. 

I think there is fairness though in saying that I assumed he was talking to me with his face so close to mine in an effort to not have to be loud. I still think that's a huge part of the reason he was doing it. However, with some heavy chastising from Dani, I've come to understand that he would not be holding his face kissing distance from me to talk to me if he wasn't into me. So, I'm taking that note in stride. 

“A good performer knows how to take a note!” Janet Erlick while giving our production of The Little Mermaid a stern talking to about not listening 

The proximity of his very pretty lips to mine was a lot for me. I like literally have a crush on this guy. I kept turning away to try not to be super obvious about having a crush on him, but then he would say something to me, then I'd turn, then my nose would nearly brush against his, then I'd want him to kiss me, and that went on until the movie started. So, I was just very smitten I guess. I don't know. I'm kind of embarrassed about it. At the time, I was thinking that he must think I'm very weird and not the kind of girl he likes because I was being so awkward. He was also sharing the arm rest with me. I didn't want to disturb him, but I also didn't want to shift to the other side because I liked being near him, so I just put my arm behind his. I really actually wanted to touch him, but I figured that might go poorly because I was certain he thought I was a strange little girl. 

“Do you know what row this is?” Someone whispered yelled at me. 

I turned and my stomach flipped when I saw her face. Aliza. I knew where there was Aliza, there was Dani and quickly realized I was going to have some explaining to do. 

Aliza looked equally shocked when she saw my face. “Oh! Ummm. Sorry! I'll figure it out” she choked out as the color left her face. 

“The row numbers are on the arms of the chairs” I whispered.

“Thank you!” She whispered back before clambering down the steps. 

If I hadn't seen her, I could have left, found out they were there later, and never talked to him about it. However, I'd seen her and I couldn't start this off by withholding information like that. So, I geared up to have an awkward conversation once the movie ended. 

“She was looking for her seat?” Omar whispered to me, brushing my ear with his lips and sending a shudder down my spine. 

“Yeah” I replied. 

Aliza’s botched mission did give me an opportunity to feel comfortable touching Omar, so I'm grateful. I'd moved my arm next to his in all the commotion. 

The Drama is a good movie. The dialogue is awesome, the concept is certainly a very big leap forward for neurotypicals, and the acting was great. Without spoiling it for you, I'll share that there are a lot of sudden, loud, banging sounds that realigned my nervous system. I jumped every time they happened and I felt very self-conscious about it. All the shocks to my system wore me down and I started getting tired. My desire to be closer to Omar coupled with my sleepiness left me without resolve to deny myself. I drifted closer and closer to him until I finally laid down on his shoulder. I really liked laying on his shoulder :D. I remembered though that he's kind of polite and considered that he may be letting me do that even though he doesn't want me to, so after about 5 minutes I asked him if it was okay. He smiled at me asking. I guess he thought it was amusing because I was already laying on his shoulder, but he said it was okay. So, I stayed there. 

When the lights came up, I decided I wanted to not leave yet because there were a bunch of other people leaving at that time. I don't like to fight my way through a crowd. I looked around though and spotted Bill, Dani, and Aliza. Dani giggled when we made eye contact and pushed her pointer to her lips. They left while Omar and I sat and talked about the movie. He had similar and different opinions than I did. I think The Drama is actually a great first date movie because I think we got to know a lot about each other from the ways we perceived it. I think he learned that I can be a real hater if I don't like someone and I learned that he's not much of a hater at all. I think that's a good balance. 

I'm going to glaze over the fact that he did in fact meet two of my closest friends on our first date because it's crazy style and I'm shocked I made it through without going into cardiac arrest. I will say however, that he took it in stride and was surprisingly super cool about it. He also was great at making conversation and didn't even skip a beat. He also commented that Bill is more handsome than I have him credit for the one time I'd told him about Dani and Bill. I think that was nice of him.

I'll skip to us deciding to get something to eat at 11:30 PM at Nishan. I was hungry and I suppose he was too. Nishan was open and it was right by my car. On the way over there, we talked about our families a bit and I talked about how I have removed myself from my family because I can no longer tolerate the way they treat me. I was nervous to share that. I wonder if it makes me seem whitewashed (I'm not) or even like someone that brings a lot of drama with them (I'm also not). I told him about it because honestly, he has a personality that makes me feel comfortable telling him anything in the moment. I felt vulnerable about it afterwards, but I don't regret it. It is my practice to lay my worst out early on. By the time we'd finished talking about shady cousins and judgemental aunties, we were at Nishan. 

“So, is the chopped cheese spicy?” Omar asked me 

I frowned and laughed a bit. “Spicy for who? A white person or a brown person?” 

He smiled back and opened his lips to talk, but I cut him off. “Do you not like spicy food?” I exclaimed. 

“No, I don't really. I can manage a decent amount, but I don't like really spicy stuff” he responded. 

“Wow” I breathed. Suddenly feeling very comfortable. 

“Yeah, my mom would try to make me things that weren't as spicy for me.” He said while doing a kind of 😅 face 

“I mean…I don't think it's spicy at all, but we can go somewhere else?” 

“No, it's okay. What are you going to get?” 

“I'm going to get the chopped cheese, do you want to share one with me?” 

“I'll just get one too. Can they make it without cheese?” 

I frowned. “I guess, but like it's a chopped cheese haha”

“I've never had one” he reminded me he is new to New York. 

“Okay, we’ll ask. But we shouldn't get the same thing! I'll get something else.” I rebutted. 

This amused him, I think he thinks I'm amusing. He laughed and said “it's okay if we get the same thing” 

We went back and forth about this for a while until we just decided to get the same thing. Well, he ordered his without cheese. 

We talked a lot and we laughed a lot. We talked about my quirky parents, we talked about books, movies, and that he once loved Shia LaBeouf. He even amused me by noting that our lips are equally large (we’ll come back to this). Most notably, we talked about how our parents feel about us not being married. I shared that my father thinks I'm sort of difficult to marry because I'm not the easiest to be with. Omar's reply was that the right person will know what to do with that. I took that as “I'm not romantically interested in you” and I enjoy him so much that that was cool with me. I'm always happy to make a friend of a cool person. My ego was bruised, but I felt like I could get over it. A little after that, I decided to check my phone. 

“Oh my god, it's 1:47 am” I gasped. 

“What? Really?” He said, equally surprised. 

We packed up after that because I'm certain that neither of us expected to be there for 3 hours! 

He asked me about how I was getting home and I revealed that I was actually parked around the corner. He smiled and raised his eyebrows, realizing that's why I'd chosen Nishan. He walked me around the corner to my car and in anticipation of him telling me he sees me as a friend, I ran away. I fully opened my car door and threw my bag in before realizing I was acting wild when I saw him standing on the curb with a confused look on his face. 

“You were going to leave without saying goodbye to me?” He questioned me as I returned to him. 

“No.” I told a half truth. I would have said goodbye, I just may have said it from the safety of my window. 

“Mhm” he emoted. 

He opened his arms to me as I got closer and I prepared to give him my best show of being totally okay with him not liking me romantically. Before I could hug him though, he lowered his head and kissed me. 

“I'm really super autistic” I thought to myself. 

The thought made me start to laugh at myself, so I pulled away. Then I looked up at him and he literally looked like if a Giant Schnauzer became a human to be with me and I didn't realize who he was. You know? If he were a dog, I think he'd be a Giant Schnauzer. That made me realize that he was there too and he is a person like me.

“What's going on?” He spoke softly. 

I couldn't say “I'm running back the last 3 hours to understand how I misread the situation here”, so I instead said “I didn't think you were going to kiss me” 

The concern? Sadness? Bewilderment washed from his face and was replaced by a sort of understanding that he wasn't doing anything wrong. “Why's that?” 

I looked down, resting my forehead on his chest. Again, uncertain of how much of my truth to share. “Because I'm the autistic final boss” felt unsexy. So, I just said “I don't know”, wrapped my hand around his neck and kissed him again. 

I kept doing that for a while. Kissing him and pulling away because I felt like the right thing to do was stop and go home, then kissing him again. I think he must be on some type of mood stabilizer because he didn't even care that I kept doing that. He was just rolling with it until the fourth time I pulled away and he said “what's going on?” 

What's going on? Idk motherfucker. What's going on is that I'm overstimulated because you're very cute, and cool, and you're a very good kisser. Like? Stop asking me dumb questions! Didn't you graduate Magne Cum Laude? You've got your thumb stroking my spine while the rest of your hand is just above my lower back. Your unruly curls are tickling my face and making me giggle! You’re such a good kisser that it's actually starting to piss me off because I'm forced to know that someone else has been having their way with you. What's going on? Jfc 

“You know, we don't have to stand out here” Omar chuckled. I frowned, prompting him to continue. “We can sit in the car.”

My demeanor immediately changed. I was like “okay!” 

Then I turned on my heels, scurried around to the driver's seat, and got in. When I started the car, I tried not to notice that it was now 2:05 in the morning, and tried to forget that I had to be Moana at 10 am. I threw my purse and all of the headset mics the Huntr/x had left in the passanger’s seat into the back as Omar was opening the door. I felt a little he/him in that moment. Like “get in the car baby girl”. You know? I felt very he/ him until he wrapped his hand around the back of his neck and kissed me again…