Two things you have to know about me: I’m on the spectrum — officially and quite recently diagnosed in my late thirties — and I’m a singer. I’m on a line between amateur and professional. Pretty much all of my friends are actors, singers, and dancers playing in musicals, and every one of them keeps telling me I have to go on and keep on trying to do the same thing as themselves. But it isn’t easy to perform in public when you’re autistic, so at first, for years, my former main way of practicing was singing at karaoke bars — not in karaoke rooms, but in the middle of a crowd. I don’t really like the very concept of karaoke, but it was useful to learn to face an audience.
About fifteen years ago, every week, I went with my best friend to a nightclub that had a special room only for karaoke, with about fifty seats. I liked going there; I felt comfortable, I made a few friends, and I even met a girlfriend.
One night, my friend saw a woman in the room, and he smiled.
Friend: “Oh, dear…”
Me: “What?”
Friend: “Have you ever heard [Woman] sing?”
Me: “No.”
Almost laughing now, he told me [Woman] was a regular who ALWAYS sang the same song, a quite famous French song… with a little personal touch. He wasn’t more specific than that, telling me with gleeful anticipation to just be patient.
[Friend] was right. After a while, [Woman] went to the microphone and, a bit tipsy, started to sing that very song. Right after the end of the chorus (the lyrics being “I want you if you want me”), with a slurring voice, trying — and failing — to sound erotic and in ecstasy, she bellowed:
Woman: “OH, YESSSS, I DO WANT YOU!”
That was so unexpected that I loudly snorted. I couldn’t help it. And I wasn’t the only one; [Friend] and other people were openly laughing at her. But she caught me — and only me — glared at me, and then kept on “singing”, doing her ridiculously orgasmic coda at the end of every chorus, two or three more times. Then, she left the stage, glaring at me one more time, and icily said:
Woman: “That’s funny, huh? Sneezing while others are singing? Achoo!”
I was taken aback but didn’t answer as she walked out of the room.
About half an hour later, [Friend] went to have a smoke outside, and I went with him. But in that special smoking zone, [Woman] was there, even drunker than before, and she started to verbally attack me again.
Woman: “Sneezing funny guy, when others are singing… Achoo! Achoo! Isn’t that funny? Achoo!”
In French, as you may know, we don’t have just one kind of “you” as a pronoun. We have two: “tu”, which we use with our family members and friends, and “vous”, which is the polite way of addressing someone you don’t know. Using “tu” toward a stranger is usually perceived as rude.
I kept saying “vous” to [Woman] while she angrily said “tu” to me. Her tone became more and more aggressive. She mocked my clothes, my obesity, and my voice, using bad language and insulting me. I tried to defuse the situation, apologizing on and on but, being upset, I just wanted more than anything else for her to stop talking to me. And that went on for about ten minutes as I tried to keep myself calm. (I still don’t know why I didn’t run away from her and her abuse.)
Then, I unknowingly reached my breaking point.
I confusedly remember two bouncers escorting me out of the nightclub and walking across the whole place before I found myself in the parking lot, on a cold fall night, sitting on the ground, back against [Friend]’s car.
I do remember the voice of the main bouncer asking his colleagues:
Main Bouncer: “Where’s the porker now?”
Bouncer #2: “Who?”
Main Bouncer: “The one who sings.”
Bouncer #2: “Oh. Behind that car.”
A few minutes went by before I got up and went back to the nightclub door to talk to [Bouncer #2].
Me: “I know I was banned, but is it only for tonight, or is it permanent?”
Stunned to see me speaking with such a calm and shy demeanor — I guess they thought I was under the influence, even though I’m a teetotaler — he went to ask his boss, who came back to me and scolded me.
Main Bouncer: “The karaoke room is not yours. Don’t mock other guests anymore.”
I agreed, and he let me in. Then, he went to scold [Friend], too.
Mentally exhausted, I needed one hour to really calm down at the darkest corner of the nightclub, silently weeping, before I went on stage and sang a song about depression and death, which made my friend tear up a bit. Then, he told me what happened with [Woman].
Friend: “You know The Incredibles? When Helen and Bob are having an argument, and she gets mad and gets taller and taller and taller?”
Me: “Sure?”
Friend: “You looked pretty much the same. Like a cartoon character.”
As a matter of fact, it seems my voice had become unusually shrill and my vocabulary EXTREMELY coarse. I was stepping at [Woman], screaming, with unblinking eyes, until she literally had her back to the wall.
Friend: “You definitely looked like you were going to bash her skull against the bricks. You terrified her.”
I didn’t touch her, though, and I may not have at all; the bouncers’ intervention prevented it anyway. Since [Woman] was a friend of the nightclub bosses — she was there every open day and never drank water — she never had problems. And I do understand that a man reacting like I did with a woman isn’t sane at all, and I deserved to be considered the only one responsible for the situation.
Anyway, [Woman] never approached me again, cautiously avoiding crossing my path every time I was there.
That was the most explosive meltdown I ever had. I’m not proud of it.
